minutes with very brief pauses, and is typically sung from the canopy or an emergent tree. Singing also appears to be performed as part of a strategic regulation of body mass. While robins sing during the dawn chorus as well as throughout the day, they seem to increase their singing according to food availability. When they have had more food, they will increase energetic behaviours, such as singing, to arrive at a strategic mass by dusk. Thus, even though two robins might begin the day with different weights, they will end the day with similar weights. A side-effect of this behaviour might be the showcasing of a particular male's ability to sequester resources: the longer he sings, the more capable he is of finding food, and thus a better candidate for a mate. Conservation The South Island robin is listed as being of least concern on the IUCN Red List. However, the Stewart Island robin (Petroica australis rakiura) has gone through a couple of bottlenecked populations recently because of deforestation and habitat loss, as well as introduced predators, such as rats, stoats, and feral cats. Because of this sharp decline in the Stewart Island population, several attempts have been made to translocate the Stewart Island robin to other islands nearby where introduced predators do not exist or have been eradicated (see above). However, many of these translocations have involved 12 or fewer colonising individuals, making inbreeding nearly unavoidable. This has led to some apparent immunocompetency issues as well as reproduction problems. On Motuara Island, high rates of hatching failure as well as fewer clutches were observed. Inbreeding and its genetic and immunological consequences, therefore, remain a concern with this subspecies. In contrast, birds in the South Island do not show much genetic loss in comparison with historical populations, although their distribution on the island has become increasingly fragmented. South Island robins and 1080 poison A number of robin deaths have been recorded as a result of accidental 1080 poisoning following pest control operations. Most of these were associated with four specific operations in the 1980s that used poor-quality carrot baits. These instances aside, robins have generally responded well to pest control programmes using aerial 1080 operations, with increased chick and adult survival, and increases in population size. A 2012 scientific study of a marked population by the University of Otago during a contemporary 1080 poison operation using cereal baits showed