New Zealand's kākāpō recovery programme has been given a major shot in the arm thanks to a significant "out-of-the-blue" donation from internet giant Google.

The money would be enough to feed one island population of the native, endangered, flightless parrot for a year, or to cover around half of the annual cost of the artificial insemination programme.

Department of Conservation science advisor for kākāpō Dr Andrew Digby says the "significant" donation came unannounced in an email from the company's Street View manager.

Google confirmed it donated $8000 to the programme as part of its annual Giving Week. The kākāpō had caught the eye of product manager Stafford Marquardt.

"I'm originally from Hawai'i, where we also have a number of threatened endemic birds," he said. "Someday I hope we can help return kākāpō to the mainland islands!"



Mr Marquardt, who has visited some of New Zealand's wildlife reserves, said he was impressed by the country's "groundbreaking" conservation efforts, and his colleagues were equally enthusiastic.

"We did get donations from folks all around the world - it was absolutely amazing to see people join in to support kākāpō."



Dr Digby said Google's contribution was extremely useful.



"It's the amount of money that would fund a significant part of our programme. When we have a breeding season we feed the birds on the island and [the donation] provides the cost of supplementary food for one island for a year, so that's the sort of stuff that's really helpful to us," he says.

There are three main populations of the bird - the heaviest in the world - on Codfish Island (Whenua Hou), Little Barrier Island (Hauturu o Toi) and Anchor Island.

The money hadn't been earmarked for any particular project, and Dr Digby didn't expect the money to come with conditions.

"It's often easier for us to use it where we see fit, rather than having to use it for a particular thing."

However, it would allow their work to go beyond the core functions the programme gets government and sponsorship money for.

"We have our core operating money which pays for a lot of logistics stuff - getting to and from islands and that sort of thing, but we have discrete projects too and these sort of donations enable us to go beyond our core work a little bit and push things on so we can do research programmes."

More birds, same funding