The kakapo is an unusual bird. The world's largest parrot was once common throughout its native New Zealand until predators hunted it to the brink of extinction. Now the stocky green-and-yellow bird is critically endangered and lives only on four islands off the coast of New Zealand.
It's the focus of a considerable conservation effort from the New Zealand Department of Conservation's Kakapo Recovery program. From its funky facial hair to its elaborate courtship rituals, the kakapo is certainly special.
Here are a dozen strange facts about this unique bird. There are currently known adult birds, each named and extensively monitored. That's a big jump from , when there were only 51 known birds. Because there are so few birds, all kakapos have names. They are named by members of the Kakapo Recovery program. Older birds were typically given English language names like Boomer, Flossie and Ruth.
More recent chicks have Maori names such as Ra, Ruapuke and Taeatanga. Some birds have been named for people who are involved in conservation efforts. For example, Attenborough was named in honor of conservationist Sir David Attenborough. The kakapo looks more like an owl and is often referred to as an owl-parrot. It has a whisker-y face that looks as if it's sporting muttonchops or sideburns. They are a mossy greenish-yellow, mottled color with black and dark brown patches called chevrons sprinkled in their feathers above and lots more yellow underneath.
They typically have gray feet. Their scientific name Strigops habroptila actually means "owl-like," according to Animal Diversity Web, and refers to their bristle-like feathers that surround their eyes, ears, and beak. Its name means "night parrot" in Maori because it prefers solo nighttime walkabouts. Kakapo Recovery calls the parrot a "midnight rambler" due to its penchant for sleeping all day and wandering through the forest alone at night.
These birds typically tuck themselves into a tree during the day and head out as a party of one in the evening to find food.
These relatively solitary birds look for company only when it's time to breed or raise their chicks. But that doesn't mean the birds don't make their presence known. According to the New Zealand Department of Conservation , neighboring birds likely communicate with loud "skrarks.
After the business of breeding is over, males abandon the females to let them raise their chicks alone. The female usually lays one to four eggs. She has to leave the newborn chicks alone at night while she looks for food. The chicks are vulnerable to predators because their nests are particularly smelly and easy to find. Typically, the chicks leave the nest after about 10 weeks, but often a mother will continue to feed them until they reach 6 months old.
Kakapos "live life in the slow lane," according to Kakapo Recovery. Males don't start breeding until they're about 4 or 5 years old, and females don't start until they are about 6 years old. Even then, breeding doesn't take place every year. It typically happens every two to four years and seems to be dependent on the availability of food. They typically only breed in New Zealand rimu trees are fruitful, which is about every two to four years.
Or at least it's loud. Kakapos freeze when startled. One of their defenses is to freeze and hope to blend into the background when danger is near. This worked well when their only predators were eagles that use sight to hunt; it is not so successful with introduced mammalian predators that rely on their sense of smell to find prey. They're nocturnal. Kakapos roost in trees or on the ground during the day and only become active at night. They smell nice.
The kakapo has a well-developed sense of smell, useful in its nocturnal lifestyle. It also has what's described as a musty-sweet odor. This likely helps kakapos find each other in the forest; unfortunately, it helps introduced mammalian predators find them, too. They're friendly. Even wild kakapos are known to approach, climb on, and preen people.
George Edward Grey, the English ornithologist who first described the kakapo in , once wrote that his pet kakapo's behavior towards him and his friends was "more like that of a dog than a bird.
They're critically endangered. Both groups cleared large areas of the kakapo's habitat and brought with them predators like cats, rats, and stoats that the kakapo had no defenses against. The Plan involved the rounding up and relocation of kakapos to predator-free islands, setting up supplementary feeding stations for the birds, and sometimes artificial incubation of eggs and hand-raising of chicks. The effort has averted the kakapo's extinction, but they are still critically endangered.
As of early , there were kakapos in the wild. They're possibly one of the longest-lived birds. Kakapos live life at a slow pace. Males don't start breeding until they are about four years old, and females around six years of age. They disappeared from the North Island by about , but persisted longer in the wetter parts of the South Island.
The last birds died out in Fiordland in the late s. A population of less than two hundred birds was discovered on Stewart Island in , but this population was also declining due to cat predation. Kakapo now occur only on forested islands, though they previously appeared to have inhabited a wide range of vegetation types.
A total of birds was known in June All carry radio transmitters and are intensively monitored and managed. Adult kakapo are vulnerable to predation by cats and stoats, and their eggs and chicks can be killed by rats. Females alone incubate eggs and raise chicks. As they must spend long periods away from the nest feeding, eggs and chicks are particularly vulnerable to predation when the nest is unattended.
Chick-rearing is protracted, and nests become smelly and easy for predators to find. Away from nests, kakapo usually freeze and rely on cryptic colouration to hide them from predators. While this strategy worked when the main predators were birds that hunted by sight, it is a completely ineffective strategy to avoid mammalian predators that hunt by smell.
Attempts to protect kakapo from introduced predators by transferring them to Resolution Island in the s failed when stoats swam to the island. However, the population did not start to increase until kiore were removed from the islands and the birds were more intensively managed. Intensive management comprised moving the birds between islands, protecting nests from rats, supplementary feeding adults, closely monitoring eggs and chicks, and rescuing and hand-raising any failing chicks.
Kakapo have very low genetic diversity and, as a consequence, low fertility. Much recent conservation management has focussed on managing matings, and using artificial insemination to minimise further genetic loss.
Kakapo are currently held on three islands Whenua Hou, Anchor Island and Hauturu ; they bred on all three islands in , with 32 chicks surviving. Kakapo breed in summer and autumn, but only in years of good fruit abundance. On islands in southern New Zealand they breed when the rimu trees fruit, which is once every 2 to 4 years.
Elsewhere in New Zealand they probably nested when southern beech seeded, but the triggers for breeding in some northern places, including Hauturu, are unknown. Kakapo are lek breeders.
Males call from track-and-bowl systems to attract females for mating. Males play no part in incubation or chick-rearing. The nests are on or under the ground in natural cavities or under dense vegetation. The eggs are laid in a shallow depression in the soil or rotten wood, which is repeatedly turned-over before and during incubation. Kakapo are nocturnal and solitary, occupying the same home range for many years. They forage on the ground and climb high into trees.
They often leap from trees and flap their wings, but at best manage a controlled plummet. Kakapo are entirely vegetarian. Their diet includes, leaves, buds, flowers, fern fronds, bark, roots, rhizomes, bulbs, fruit and seeds. Diet varies seasonally. Atkinson, I. Notornis 53 : Ballance, A. Kakapo: rescued from the brink of extinction. Craig Potton Publishing Limited. Butler, D. The habitat, food and feeding ecology of kakapo in Fiordland: a synopsis from the unpublished MSc thesis of Richard Gray.
Cockrem, J. The timing of breeding in the kakapo Strigops habroptilus.
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