New Zealand: Record Breeding Season for Rare Kakapos
The extremely rare parrot lives exclusively on four islands off the coast of New Zealand.
The world's heaviest parrots, the endangered New Zealand kakapos, have experienced a record breeding season this year — and may be benefiting from climate change in the process.
The mere 50 adult female kakapos laid 249 eggs, from which 89 chicks have so far hatched — more than twice as many as in the last breeding season, reported scientist Andrew Digby. He expects that 75 of the chicks will survive to adulthood.
In total, there are currently only 147 adult kakapos. The species is monitored extremely closely by researchers. Every individual animal carries a transmitter, and the nests are monitored by video. The scientific oversight is so thorough that researchers even know on which day the last chick of the season will hatch — this year it was Good Friday.
The yellow-green kakapos, weighing around four kilograms, mate only every two to four years, when New Zealand's rimu trees bear fruit. This year the trees produced an unusually large amount of fruit — possibly thanks to climate change, as researcher Digby explained.
The nocturnal kakapos were already considered extinct when some surviving individuals were discovered in 1970. According to Digby, kakapos are probably among the most intensively monitored species in the world. In his words, conservationists will not be able to ease the monitoring until the population has grown to at least 500.
