The kakapo is a large, nocturnal, flightless parrot that lives in New Zealand. This yellow-green parrot is highly endangered as there are only 124 of them left in the world. Before people moved to the island, the kakapo was just fine roaming the wilderness without the ability to fly. They had no natural land predators, therefore they were never in any danger. Well, when people brought those land animals (cats, rats, stoats), the parrot could not defend itself and the population took a nose dive.
There is a recovery program for this species, which is great. The program is a partnership between the New Zealand Department of Conservation, Forest and Bird, and Rio Tinto Alcan NZ/New Zealand Aluminum Smelters. This group received great news last year when a higher number of chicks survived than previous years. These new chicks brought the species number to over 100, which hasn’t been seen in decades. The group works very closely with the birds and a lot of them have names. They think that their oldest one, Richard Henry, is probably at least 60 years old.
The high number of chicks that survived were captive bred in a highly successful program. Nearly all of the chicks survived and successfully released in the wild. The chicks are captive bred to increase chances of surviving and also due to the lack of food in the wild.
Another interesting trait about the parrots is their subsonic mating call, which is a boom like sound that can travel miles. Also, the parrot is the only flightless bird that has a lekking type mating system. This is where the males compete for females, but only one or a few of the males get to mate with all the females.
The remaining wild kakapos live on two islands off of New Zealand. Sanctuaries have been set up for their protection. Rat and other mammal predators have been removed from one of the islands, but still continues to be a problem.
Here’s a video of the kakapo that’s pretty funny because it tries to mate with the photographer!
