The term ‘snipe hunting’ is used in North America to describe a wild goose chase, an endeavour with little chance of success. It seemed an apt description for the translocation mission, as its leaders wondered countless times whether they would ever pull it off. An unlikely crew is given the assignment of catching birds in butterfly nets on a weather-beaten subantarctic island. 

Plans are underway to grant a statutory pardon to Tūhoe prophet and healer Rua Kēnana, who was imprisoned for resisting arrest after troops stormed his Te Urewera settlement in 1916.

Here's the story of what happened.