Kakapo Recovery

Scientists do everything they can to save this extraordinary parrot.

The last 147 copies of the kakapo walk around in the wild - because this parrot-like bird cannot fly. Scientists now use fitness trackers and drones with sperm on board to help the birds with their reproduction.

In a cabin on the remote Whenua Hou (Codfish Island), off the coast of New Zealand's South Island, hangs a hand-written table on the door of the refrigerator summarizing the future of an animal species.
The species in question is the kakapo, a strange parrot-like species that cannot fly and is native to New Zealand. The table shows all breeding kakapo females on the planet - fifty specimens, with names like Pearl, Marama and Hoki - and the status of their eggs: smileys for fertilized eggs, tight faces for unfertilized eggs, wings and paws for eggs that hatch and x's for chicks that have died.
In the hope of more smileys and wings, and fewer x's, a team of scientists, park overseers and volunteers is now working day and night during the breeding season. They use fitness trackers, 'smart eggs' created by a 3D printer and a drone with semen on board (and nicknamed 'Cloaca courier') to turn a record year for the reproduction of these parrots. magic into a true milestone for the recovery of the kakapo population and the permanent saving of the species.


Strange bird
The kakapo is a strange phenomenon: it is the only nocturnal parrot that cannot fly and a waddling bird that never gets off the ground can reach a weight of four kilos and is in the habit of keeping silent when confronted with predators . The animal is well camouflaged in the forest by its spotted, green plumage, and its broad beak gives the bird a somewhat comical facial expression, which is midway between that of an owl and a figure from The Muppets.

 

Photographer: Andrew Digby

Sirocco
Sirocco, a kakapo who grew up in captivity and has become the official "spokesperson" for the New Zealand rescue project, has more than 200,000 followers on Facebook. His failed attempt to mate with the head of a zoologist became the inspiration for a party parrot, the swinging, bright-colored parrot emoji created by Redditors and the National Geographic animal editors.
"They are incredibly charismatic birds," says Andrew Digby, scientific advisor to the Kakapo Recovery Program at the New Zealand Department of Nature Conservation. "It's hard not to love them."
The kakapo was once a widespread species throughout New Zealand, but the wing-lame birds, their chicks and their eggs were eaten in large numbers by rats, cats, and ermines that had been brought on ships to the islands. The 147 adults still living in the wild today are all transferred to three islands off the coast where no predators are found. That small number is already quite an achievement, because in the mid-nineties of the last century there were only 51 kakapos in the wild.