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A Bumper Berry Harvest Has New Zealand’s Weird Flightless Parrot in a Rare Mood for Romance
A large fruit harvest has triggered increased kakapo mating activity with hopes for a record chick count; one chick has already hatched on a livestreamed nest.
- On Whenua Hou yesterday, a technician replaced a fake egg with female kakapo Rakiura’s near-hatching egg on a livestream, and the chick hatched just over an hour later.
- This year, a bumper crop of rimu berries prompted rare kakapo breeding, which only occurs every two to four years when sufficient food ensures chick survival, last happening in 2022.
- The Department of Conservation's kakapo program relocated the parrots to three remote, predator-free islands and tracks each bird with backpack trackers, helping the population rise to over 200 over three decades.
- Rakiura's nest shows that she has laid three eggs, two fertile, with a second real egg expected soon, and conservationists say hands-on care will continue despite eased interventions.
- Decades ago, introduced predators and habitat loss drove the world's only flightless parrot near extinction by 1974, but a new population was found in the late 1970s; males' booming and `chings` add to survival challenges.
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18 Articles
18 Articles
readingeagle+3 Reposted by 3 other sources
By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — It was believed that the only non-flying parrot in the world was destined to disappear. Kakapo is too heavy, slow and, frankly, too appetizing to survive surrounded by predators. And, moreover, it adopts a blatantly relaxed attitude towards its reproduction. But the fate of this nocturnal and solitary bird, endemic to New Zealand, begins to lean towards survival after an unlikely conservat…
·United States
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Associated Press News+11 Reposted by 11 other sources
A bumper berry harvest has New Zealand's weird flightless parrot in a rare mood for romance
New Zealand conservationists have been fighting for years to keep the kakapo, the world’s only flightless parrot, from disappearing, with intensive conservation efforts.
·United States
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Total News Sources18
Leaning Left11Leaning Right1Center5Last UpdatedBias Distribution65% Left
Bias Distribution
- 65% of the sources lean Left
65% Left
L 65%
C 29%
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