Unhappy Whio –
Your populations estranged,
split by the Cook strait.
The rare blue duck (named the Whio in Maori after the male call) is found on the North and South islands of New Zealand. The genetics suggest that the populations on the two islands diverged in the late Pleistocene, with very limited gene flow since. The current conservation strategy not to translocate individuals between the populations is therefore sensible so as to avoid potentially negative issues arising from crossing distant genetic pools. Grosser et al, 2016.