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Home / New Zealand

Mischievous Kea rearrange road cones on state highway

By Belinda Feek
Reporter·NZ Herald·
29 Nov, 2016 06:27 PMQuick Read

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The mystery of moving road cones at the entrance to the Homer Tunnel was solved when CCTV showed NZ's notorious parrot directing traffic

South Island kea are having fun with motorists by rearranging road cones on a popular tourist route.

The Kea Conservation Trust said the NZ Transport Agency's Milford Alliance team were puzzled to find their road cones in odd places on State Highway 94 at the Homer Tunnel, the entrance to Milford Sound.

After a few weeks they checked the footage from their cameras at each end of the tunnel and made a remarkable, and hilarious, discovery - it was cheeky kea.

The video, labelled The Kea Movie, starts with the road clear of any road cones before a kea can be seen dragging one onto the left hand lane. Another one then appears being brought into the middle of the road as cars weave around them, before the Kea again pops out and moves the cone again.

A third road cone is then brought out onto the road and the mischievous kea continue to rearrange the cones, popping out of sight as traffic goes by, before darting out and moving them again.

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