Page 77 - BBC Wildlife - August 2017 UK

KAKAPO

THE KAKAPO’S
LAST REFUGE Little Barrier
Island
Formerly the species
occurred throughout most
of New Zealand’s South
and North Islands. It now
survives as a tiny population
on three offshore islands. North Island

NE W
Fiordland
National Park ZEALAND
South Island
Anchor
Island
would need some serious assistance to pull it back from Clockwise from
the brink, so the Kakapo Recovery Project was set up. top left: the
Kakapo Recovery
Today, the team behind it continues to work tirelessly,
team collect
doing everything it can to boost the species’ numbers, semen samples; PRESENT-DAY RANGE
including regular health inspections, supplementary Andrew Digby FOUNDING MEMBERS
feeding and scrupulous checks to ensure their habitat searches for the OF ALL LIVING KAKAPO
birds using a Stewart
remains predator-free. Activity becomes particularly Codfish Island WERE DISCOVERED
receiver; a kakapo
intense during breeding seasons, when nests and is fitted with a Island HERE IN THE 1970S
chicks are monitored around the clock. Thanks to these
De Roy; transm tter: Stephen Be cher yet progress still feels frustratingly slow. supplejack berries
transmitter; the
parrots feed on
Herculanean efforts, the kakapo population has tripled,
and other fruits.
SLOW STARTERS
Part of the problem is that kakapo only breeds every two
to four years, when there’s a bumper crop of pinkish-red
berries on their favourite tree, the rimu. It then takes at least
ng & rece ver; Andrew D gby; feed ng: Tu five years for the birds to reach sexual maturity. And when
they do breed (many don’t), fertility levels are low and chicks
often die. Luckily, 2016 was a bumper breeding year, with
122 eggs laid, of which 47 hatched and 34 chicks fledged.
Although no one knows for sure what’s causing these
problems, the suspicion is that they’re genetic. When
animals hail from a small founding population – as today’s

needed to help species adapt to change and survive
B ood samp kakapo do – they can become inbred. The genetic vibrancy
becomes eroded when related birds with similar DNA
breed. So the rescue team became interested in DNA.
August 2017 BBC Wildlife 77