High above the bushline over-looking Lake Te Anau, conservation staff prepare to board the alpine taxi courtesy of Fiordland Helicopters for the short flight back to Te Anau from the Murchison Mountains.br/br/The Takahē (Porphyrio hochstetteri) is a flightless rail weighing up to 3kg. They were believed extinct until a dramatic rediscovery in 1948 by Geoffrey Orbell, in the Murchison Mountains of Fiordland. Endemic to New Zealand, a remnant population still survives in the subalpine grasslands of the Murchison Mountains.