Kakapo baby boom prompts house hunt

By ANNE BESTON

The kakapo breeding season has been so successful that the Department of Conservation is struggling to find safe homes for them all.

The tally of kakapo chicks hatched over summer has reached 21, with more to come. Before the season started the total population of the world's rarest parrot was 62.

"We are looking at islands in Fiordland, but there have been stoats there in the past so we are still evaluating them," said DoC kakapo programme manager Paul Jansen.

"The problem is, we don't really know how much room kakapo need. We're still working on that."

In past seasons, the kakapo have produced as few as three eggs. This season females that have not bred for 20 years are producing healthy chicks.

The flightless parrots were on the brink of extinction before 200 birds were discovered on Stewart Island in the mid-1970s. That population formed the basis of those now breeding on Codfish Island-Whenua Hou Nature Reserve, 4km off Stewart Island.

All kakapo nests are watched by video cameras and minders sleep in tents nearby.

Every time the mother leaves a "heat pad" is put over the chicks to mimic her warmth. A radio transmitter tells the minders where she is, so the pad can be whisked away before she returns.

Underweight or sickly chicks are removed from the nest and raised in incubators.

"It's a privilege to work with kakapo, not many people get the chance," says incubator minder Karin Ludwig, as she gently rubs the beak of a 10-day-old chick. Hand-raised chicks are fed every four hours. They are not released into the wild until they are about five months old.

Male and female fertility is a key to the long-term survival of kakapo - more than half the eggs laid this summer were infertile. This year, for the first time, scientists have conducted fertility tests on male birds.

Mr Jansen says infertile males could be "set aside" in favour of fertile ones if testing proved conclusive.

Research is also being done into why so many male chicks are hatching when males already make up two-thirds of the kakapo population.

"We've done some work on it but we need to know why females in good health produce more males," Mr Jansen said.

Supplementary feeding, which produces heavy, healthy female birds, might be linked to the high number of male chicks.

DoC says the abundance of the bird's favourite rimu fruit has probably triggered this population boom and a similar season could be 10 years away.

But staff on the island are ecstatic over the birth rate.

"There's just a buzz around here," says Mr Jansen.

nzherald.co.nz/environment