Kākāpō Recovery Programme Update

It’s fantastic to have a near full team of dedicated people bringing a raft of skills.

New staff: In this newsletter we profile a few new staff that have recently joined the Kākāpō Recovery Team. Some of them are already familiar faces to us!

Transfers: In July four kākāpō were transferred the length of the country, from Whenua Hou to Hauturu-o-Toi.

In August, a young female kākāpō Tītapu was transferred from Anchor to Whenua Hou.

Summits and conferences: The team attended both the National Science Challenge “Crazy and Ambitious” conference and the Threatened Species Summit in Wellington. This was an opportunity for the team to present and discuss bold science and research for kākāpō.

Health Checks: The team have checked all 32 of the 2016 juveniles and they are all doing very well. We’ve also checked every bird on Whenua Hou for the disease ‘cloacitis’.

Population 153: Sadly 8-year-old kākāpō Wharetutu was found dead on Whenua Hou. She had recently recovered from an episode of chronic cloacitis – so we suspect her death may have been related to this, however this remains unconfirmed.

Sirocco: Since the last newsletter we’ve again attempted to locate Sirocco, the celebrity kākāpō, with no luck. Not surprising as during winter he’s less social and unlikely to seek out people. We’ll be waiting for summer before we try again.