[1] This group comprises commonly hunted waterfowl (mallard, grey duck, Australasian shoveler, paradise shelduck, black swan and pūkeko) and introduced game birds, including pheasant, quail, chukar and partridge.

[6] The only species on this list that occur naturally in New Zealand are the southern black-backed gull and the spur-winged plover (masked lapwing), both of which present a significant risk of bird strike.

[9] Leisure shark cage diving was authorized in New Zealand in 2008, but its disturbance to the marine ecosystem made its compliance to the Wildlife Act 1953 debatable.

[10] In 2024, a fisherman in New Zealand was fined for killing a white shark and failing to notify the authorities, a direct violation of the Wildlife Act 1953.

[12] In a 2019 paper, the Department of Conservation described the Wildlife Act 1953 as “overlapping, contradictory, contested, ineffective”, “slow” and “outdated”, and the legislative regimes as being “not able to adapt well to the current and future pressures they need to respond to”.