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| | New Zealand bird, Larus dominicanus, black-backed gull (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-20) |
 | | The fl-backed gull is a circumpolar navigator, living in and around the coasts of South America, South Africa, south–east Australia and New Zealand. |
 | | We have been told, says Elsdon Best, that occasionally, the Karoro sea gull was tamed by Maori and employed as a pest–destroyer, released among the sweet potato crops that they might consume the the big caterpillars that infested the plants. |
 | | One early collector of data tells us that such tame birds would accompany on the wing the people of the village when moving to other parts on a fishing, fowling, rat–catching or berry collecting expedition but another such collector has stated that such birds were deprived of their powers of flight by their captors. |
| nzbirds.com /birds/blackbackedgull.html (537 words) |
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