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Saddleback - Tieke Saddlebacks, which once were plentiful the length and breadth of New Zealand, and particularly on the islands of the Hauraki Gulf, have been extinct on the mainland since the turn of the Century. Extinct on Cuvier Island, too, where a lighthouse was built in the 1860s and cats introduced by the lighthouse keepers. Only on Hen Island and some minor islands off Stewart Island, did the distinctive black and tan birds survive. Cuvier Island was cleared of predators and the saddlebacks re-introduced in 1968 from Hen Island. They established themselves so well that the Cuvier population is now used as a reservoir to colonise other islands. They are well settled on Tiritiri Matangi Island in the Hauraki Gulf.