PROMOTING EXCELLENCE IN PARROT CONSERVATION AVICULTURE AND WELFARE Ps i t t a sVcol. 10 No.e 1 Februarnye 1998 The World Parrot Trust HELPING THE SURVIVAL OF THE KAKAPO by Andrew Greenwood, MA, VET. MB, F.I. BIOL., MRCVS A Veterinary Review of the Kakapo Management Programme After about eighteen months of Codfish Island is where the majority Hebrides. Back at the airport in the the tide hit me - we were going to discussion and difficulties with of surviving Kakapo live, and where afternoon, Bill loaded me into a land on the beach! A quick pass to funding, my invitation to visit New the current management effort is small, single-engined aircraft along make sure all was clear, and Bill Zealand finally came through in greatest. with tanks of fuel and other supplies flipped the plane around, dropped it April 1997. Don Merton and his At Invercargill airport, which is a and, with a tremendous roar from a seemingly within inches of some colleagues, who make up the New bit like Stornoway or Bangor, I met very powerful engine, we took off rocky outcrops, and made a perfect Zealand Department of up with Bill Moffat, who was to straight out over the Southern landing just at the water’s edge. I Conservation’s (DoC) Kakapo pilot me over to the island in his Ocean, apparently headed for had finally arrived at the other end Management Team, asked me to small plane. There would be a delay Antarctica. For the next 45 minutes of the earth. spend two weeks with them until the late afternoon, Bill said I felt extremely vulnerable until the Waiting to meet me were Don assessing all the veterinary and somewhat cryptically, because of reassuring bulk of Stewart Island Merton, legendary saviour of the husbandry aspects of their the tide. appeared in front of us, but we Black Robin and the leading expert programme. Needless to say, I did Not fully taking this in, I set off passed it on our left and pushed on on the Kakapo, Grant Harper and not need to be asked twice and by into the small town to visit the to a much smaller island which was his colleague Ros Cole who run the the middle of April I was on my Southland Museum where I learned Codfish (I had not had time to do island, and an assortment of DoC way. The timing proved to be a little about life in the South Island my geography homework before staffers and volunteers working on perfect. and watched their fascinating and setting off). The obvious feature of the birds. They all grabbed my bags We have read much of the Kakapo unique exhibit of breeding tuatara Codfish was that it was hump- and the rest of the supplies and led (Strigops habroptilus) and its plight (Sphenodon punctatus). Invercargill shaped and hilly and could not the way through the sand dunes to in recent issues of Psittascene. in April is a cold damp little town possibly conceal a landing strip, an extremely well-appointed Suffice to say that by April 1997 it which could easily be in the which is when the significance of wooden house, which was the island stood at a population of 50 birds with a high preponderance of males, and all the birds were “marooned” in semi-captivity on small offshore islands where they were under increasingly intensive management. A single handreared captive female “Hoki” resulted from the last successful breeding which occurred in 1992. The species is officially extinct in the wild. Getting to New Zealand is no joke. The fastest flight is via Los Angeles on Air New Zealand and even that takes a crippling 24 hours, arriving early in the morning. This allowed me to catch an internal flight the full length of the country to Invercargill at the southernmost tip, the nearest airport to Codfish Island which was my ultimate destination. psittacine (sit’å sîn) Belonging or allied to the “parrots; parrot-like “Zephyr” Kakapo and her 40 day old (1.24kg) nestling “Tiwai”, Codfish Island. Photo: Don Merton If we” can save the parrots, we may yet save ourselves © WP T 1 base. As is the rule on all New Zealand’s predator free islands, nothing could be opened until all the bags had been placed in a sealed room, and then everything was thoroughly searched for any rodent stowaways. Despite the remoteness of the island and the difficulties in keeping it supplied, the base was very comfortable and well-equipped, although with so many people around Grant had had to enlist the help of his mother to cook for EDITOR: everyone. At the peak there were Rosemary Low, sixteen people working from the P.O.Box 100, base, most of them looking after the Kakapo but a couple of them Mansfield,Notts Andrew Greenwood of World Parrot Trust, UK with injured Kakapo “Ken”. Photo: Don Merton United Kingdom working on the nesting petrels. The NG20 9NZ great news was that I had arrived in take to it well. The other three located and a watch set up. the middle of the first breeding chicks were in two other nests with Nest management of the Kakapo is season of the Kakapo on Codfish fed females. the most astonishing operation I CONTENTS: since 1992, and the team were Don then brought me up to date. have ever seen. The biologists guarding two nests with chicks and The fostered chick, now called move into a routine which handrearing one rescued bird. “Gromet” had had to be rescued resembles a cross between an SAS Helping the Survival of again because of inadequate weight close protection squad and a the Kakapo ................1-4 THE KAKAPO TEAM gain. So it was back under Daryl’s premature baby unit. A camp is The core members of the Kakapo care. Of the two chicks in one nest, established 50 metres from the nest, AVisit to Paradise........5 Management Team number four. there were concerns about the which is usually in a hole under a My interpretation of the different respiration of one bird, although it fallen tree and whose site has been Action Sampiri ..........6-7 roles they play is my own, but was growing well, and the others marked by a transmitter. While the basically I saw Don Merton as the seemed fine. female’s behaviour is constantly Enough is Enough ....8-9 wildlife manager, Graeme Elliot as Kakapo management falls into two monitored by radio, a predator the scientific ornithologist and Paul parts. In the winter and non- exclusion grid of rat traps and World Parrot Bookstore “Scratch” Jansen as the manager of breeding seasons, the majority of poisoned bait is set up extending out – Launch ....................10 the team and electronics wizard, birds are supplementary fed. Each to 100 m. from the nest. Fortunately, although each of them could bird carries a radio-transmitter on a the only predator on Codfish is the Wild Bird Trade in perform well in any of these roles. harness so it can be easily located Pacific rat or kiore (Rattus exulans) Coimbatore, India ......11 The fourth member, Daryl Eason, I and the transmitters have alarm which is small but still capable of had met before when he came over signals which indicate when a bird taking eggs and chicks. A video News...Views... to Britain to study handrearing is immobile for too long. Kakapo camera system is set in the nest, Action....................12-13 techniques at the World Parrot are fed at feeding stations which using infra-red light, from which Trust’s base at Paradise Park and have specially designed feed cables run back to the camp to a The Mauritius with Shirley Lawton. It was Daryl’s hoppers to exclude rats and other time-lapse recorder. The system is Project ........................13 crucial and unenviable job to birds. To reach the hoppers, they based on the technology of the handrear any rescued chicks. At have to stand on a scale, which video entry-phone. Nests are Parrots Helping Parrots some time or other during my stay records their weight and downloads watched from dusk to dawn, which Club ............................14 all of the team came through the it to a data logger buried nearby. is when the females leave to feed. island to play a part in the work. Feeding is mostly done by visiting So when the nestminders arrive, How You Can Help Save Other DoC staffers came from all volunteers together with the resident they switch on the screen in the tent the Parrots ..................15 over the place to lend a hand for island managers. Food is prepared to check the nest. When the female shorter periods, and each of them in a purpose-built kitchen and all leaves on a foraging trip, a beam Parrots in the Wild......16 had fascinating stories of their work food items weighed before and after triggers a bell in the tent. The all over the Southern oceans, from feeding to determine the food intake screen is switched on and one the Pacific Islands to the sub- and preferences of the birds. At minder watches for rats while the Antarctic and on everything from feeding times the information from other makes for the nest and the New Zealand dotterel to right the data loggers is collected and remains there on guard until the whales. returned to base. Activity of the female, signalled by her transmitter, I had been regularly briefed by birds and their movements are returns. If there is a rat-attack in the Don by fax and telephone as to followed by triangulating their time it takes for the second minder progress with the breeding season.