I watched that peice with interest, and tried to think of ways in which the farming could benefit conservation, other than just having a large captive population should some disaster wipe out the wild population.
I rear and release Pheasants for hunting, the conservation spinoffs from this, which benefit native speicies are, a dedicated predator control program from which the teal population has exploded,and dabchicks are now succesfully rearing young, the setting aside of rough areas of farm land for habbitat, and a source of food for the local Falcon population over their breeding period. All of that is possable because a small group of hunters see some benefit to themselves in paying the costs.
The only way I can see it working, is for owners of large private forest's, to be given a permit which allowed a percentage harvest if they managed to double or tripple the number of successful breedings for their property. The question is , would the cost of each harvested bird be prohibitive?
There are only a hand full of speicies that spring to mind, Weka, Kereru and Kaka. All are comparativly common, though not safe by any means, but imagine a situation where a harvest of these speicies allowed for the establishment of a population of yellowhead or stitchback as the payoff.
