It’s the summer solstice and we are waiting for kākāpō breeding to begin. Alison Ballance chats with island ranger Maddy Whittaker, who reports that on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island all the male kākāpō are in full voice, booming all night to attract the females, who haven’t shown any interest yet. The action hasn’t yet ramped up on Anchor Island. Alison also meets three key people from the Kākāpō Team, and hears about their first-ever kākāpō encounters.

Send any Kākāpō Files questions and comments to [email protected]

Learn more:

• Follow the Kākāpō Files podcast to keep up to date.
• Listen to the Voice of the Kākāpō series for a recap of the 2019 breeding season. Also listen to the episodes covering the interim 2022 breeding season, and about how a few male kākāpō have fared in the North Island, in the fenced Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari.
• For more New Zealand science and nature find and follow the Our Changing World podcast, and subscribe to the show’s monthly newsletter.

Guests:

• Maddy Whittaker, kākāpō ranger
• Daryl Eason, Technical Advisor, Kākāpō Recovery Programme
• Deidre Vercoe, Operations Manager, Kākāpō Recovery Programme
• Andrew Digby, Science Advisor, Kākāpō Recovery Programme

Kākāpō Files is made in collaboration with the Department of Conservation’s Kākāpō Recovery Programme.

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The Kākāpō Files returns for a second season, to follow everyone’s favourite parrot through what is predicted to be the biggest breeding season on record. Host Alison Ballance and Our Changing World’s Claire Concannon chat about what exactly is a kākāpō, discuss the conservation history of this endangered bird through the life story of two kākāpō, and discover just how big this breeding season might be.

Send any Kākāpō Files questions and comments to [email protected]

In this episode:

00:00 – What is a kākāpō and how rare are they?

06:32 – Kākāpō names, from Zephyr to Acheron, and a brief conservation history

14:29 – Rimu masting and the 2026 breeding season

22:25 – Kākāpō trivia

24:12 – Closing credits

Learn more:

• Follow the Kākāpō Files podcast to keep up to date.
• Want to start the new series prepared with all the backstory? Listen to the Voice of the Kākāpō series for a recap of the 2019 breeding season. Then listen to the episodes covering the interim 2022 breeding season, and about how a few male kākāpō have fared in the North Island, in the fenced Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari.
• For more New Zealand science and nature find and follow the Our Changing World podcast, and subscribe to the show’s monthly newsletter.

Guests:

• Claire Concannon, Our Changing World

References:

“Kākāpō: Rescued from the Brink of Extinction” by Alison Ballance (published 2018)

Kākāpō Files is made in collaboration with the Department of Conservation’s Kākāpō Recovery Programme.

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In 2019 Alison Ballance followed the bumpy, rollercoaster ride that was the kākāpō breeding season. Now she returns, six years on, to do it all over again. We'll meet familiar characters, of both the human and bird kind, as well as new faces. Will the chicks born in 2019 start to breed? How will the team fare with a more hands-off approach? Will the deadly aspergillosis that surfaced in 2019 return? And with the rimu mast predicted to be big, could this be the most successful breeding season yet? First episode drops 16th December. Don't miss it.

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Claire Concannon and Dr Andrew Digby talk about all things kākāpō: that habitat trial and where the birds are now, the next breeding season, and Andrew’s hopes for the future of this iconic manu.  

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In July 2023 four male kākāpō were released into the fenced Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari – part of a new habitat trial to investigate suitable locations for the growing kākāpō population. But after a further six were introduced, the kākāpō began to wander – beyond the fence. A year on, and several escapes later, what’s been learned? And what’s next for kākāpō in Maungatautari?

There are plenty of night-time wanderers in New Zealand that you might expect to come across driving on back roads – rats, mice, a seemingly endless number of possums.

But it’s not often that you round a corner to come face to face with a kākāpō.

Elwin’s escapade

This was the surprising sight that faced Tyler James Lindsay very early one morning in January 2024.

A Cambridge local, Tyler was driving a milk tanker along Scott Road, northeast of Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, when suddenly he saw before him a strange shape.

“Just a big green bird. Just in the middle of the road looking straight at my lights, I think it was rather confused,” he says.

Luckily, Tyler is into native birds, so he was aware that kākāpō had been introduced to the fenced sanctuary six months earlier. He knew exactly what he was looking at.

The next day, Tyler’s report made its way to Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari kākāpō ranger Dan Howie, who quickly began the search for the elusive Elwin.

“Such an incredible interaction that he saw this bird out there – in the middle of the road no less – which is absolutely terrifying as kākāpō ranger,” says Dan.

But this was not the first time, nor the last, that Dan would feel that fear.

The habitat trial

Kākāpō numbers are growing. In 1995 there were just 51 kākāpō and the threat of losing them forever was all too real.

A decade ago, around the time that Dr Andrew Digby joined the Kākāpō Recovery team, there were just over 120 kākāpō. Today there are 247.

Intensive management and three quite successful breeding seasons have enabled this doubling of kākāpō numbers in the last 10 years. Initially, the challenge was to save the charismatic, flightless parrots from extinction. Now, the team also has an added challenge: where to put them.

To date, the majority of kākāpō have lived on offshore predator-free islands in the rohe of Ngāi Tahu – Whenua Hou / Codfish Island next to Rakiura / Stewart Island, and Pukenui / Anchor Island in Fiordland. But these islands are getting full…

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Coming soon to RNZ Podcasts is the new series Voice of Tangaroa, exploring the state of our oceans, and the extraordinary variety of life that calls it home. Released weekly from Thursday 29 February, you can find the episodes in the Voice of Tangaroa or Our Changing World podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts.

Voice of Tangaroa is a joint production between RNZ's Our Changing World and New Zealand Geographic.

Reporting for this series is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air. You can learn more and read the articles for free at www.nzgeo.com/seas

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Alison Ballance joins the kākāpō recovery team on Pukenui Anchor Island to hear how the 2021/2022 kākāpō breeding season is going.

It's been very quiet on the kākāpō front for the last two years, but this year is another big one for the rare bird.

In 2019, the endangered flightless night parrot had its largest breeding season on record, as recounted in the RNZ podcast series the Kākāpō Files and Voice of the Kākāpō. After a rollercoaster ride of successes and setbacks, 72 chicks fledged, temporarily boosting the kākāpō population to 213 birds.

Since then, there has been a slow attrition due to deaths of both old and young birds, which saw this breeding season kick off with 201 birds.

Most importantly, this number included 57 females of breeding age, which are spread across three southern kākāpō islands: Pukenui-Anchor Island (in Fiordland), Te Kakahu-Chalky Island (also in Fiordland) and Whenua Hou-Codfish Island (near Stewart Island). Forty six of those females have bred this year, laying a grand total of 139 eggs.

By autumn, 57 chicks out of the 60 that hatched were doing well, most of them being raised by their mothers or foster mothers. In previous breeding seasons many chicks have been hand-reared, but Deidre Vercoe, manager of DOC's Kākāpō Recovery Programme, says that this year the team was taking a more hands-off approach. This meant no double clutching, and most eggs were left to hatch in nests rather than in incubators.

There is now a much greater reliance on technology to allow remote monitoring, with every bird wearing a smart radio transmitter that sends information about the wearer to a centralised computer database. Te Kakahu-Chalky island is the most hands-off breeding island, and indications from activity records being sent remotely from the three nesting mothers suggests they are still raising the island's three chicks.

Aspergillosis outbreak

Unfortunately, the onset of autumn marked a bit of a turning point in the breeding season. After a period of hot dry weather in Fiordland, the female Jemma, on Pukenui Island, died from aspergillosis. This fungal disease can be deadly, with nine kākāpō dying from it in the 2019 breeding season, although a number of other kākāpō were successfully treated.

A second Pukenui female, Roha, has since been diagnosed with severe aspergillosis and is fighting for her life at Auckland Zoo. Some chicks are at the Dunedin Wildlife Hospital being treated for aspergillosis as well as injuries such as broken legs…

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The youngest kākāpō chick has passed 150 days old, bringing the number of living juveniles to 71 and the overall kākāpō population to 213, in episode 24 of the Kākāpō Files.

The kākāpō population has reached a new high of 213 birds, following the largest breeding season on record. This is a significant increase from the 147 birds that were alive at the beginning of the season.

The new total includes a record-breaking 71 juvenile birds.

Department of Conservation's Kākāpō Recovery Team scientist Dr Andrew Digby says: "there are probably more kākāpō alive today than at any time in the past 70 years."

Kākāpō Recovery manager Deidre Vercoe says the next challenge will be to find new predator-free homes for the giant endangered parrots, as the two main breeding islands are at capacity.

The 2018-2019 kākāpō breeding season has been one for the record books in many ways. It kicked off in December 2018 with the earliest mating on record, and by the time mating ended in April it was also the longest breeding season.

Breeding occurred on two of the three kākāpō islands - Whenua Hou / Codfish Island and Anchor Island, where every adult female except one bred.

Overall, 253 eggs were laid, although only 86 hatched, due to high levels of infertility and early embryo deaths.

Of those 86, 72 reached 150 days old, which is when they are considered to have graduated from being a chick to a juvenile. Stella-3-B was the last chick to reach the 150-day milestone on 17 September.

Juveniles will not be counted as adults until they reach breeding age, at five years old.

Number of aspergillosis deaths rises to 8

The current total of living juveniles is now 71, following the unexpected death last week of Margaret-Maree-2-B. A post-mortem showed he had died from aspergillosis, despite receiving an all-clear from the vets when an earlier CT scan showed no sign of the disease.

Kākāpō scientist Andrew Digby says they are investigating closely, to try and find out whether the medical check-up had missed a small infection or whether the juvenile contracted the deadly fungal disease after the check-up. He says the latter scenario would be very concerning, as all infections to date were associated with infected nests.

Margaret-Maree-2-B was one of three chicks conceived by artificial insemination. Nora-3-B, whose father is the Fiordland male Sinbad, is the only one of these three still alive.

The death of Margaret-Maree-2-B brings the total number of kākāpō killed by aspergillosis to 8, including adult females Huhana and Hoki, as well as six chicks…

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The kākāpō chicks are graduating to being juveniles and only seven birds are still sick with aspergillosis, in episode 23 of the Kākāpō Files.

Forty-two of this year's kākāpō chicks have graduated to being juveniles. They pass this milestone when they reach 150 days old.

A further 30 chicks will reach the juvenile stage over the coming weeks.

Eight kākāpō chicks have been cured of aspergillosis, and will soon be returned to the wild.

Daryl Eason from the Kākāpō Recovery Team at the Department of Conservation says there are still 18 birds being treated at various wildlife hospitals. Eight of these will soon be discharged, seven are still being treated for the fungal disease aspergillosis, and a further five are being treated for noon-aspergillosis related conditions.

Alice-3-A was one of the first kākāpō chicks to be diagnosed with aspergillosis in May, and at the time she was diagnosed with multiple granulomas, which are walled-off areas of fungal infection. She has responded well to treatment, and her lungs and respiratory system are now clear of infection.

Auckland Zoo vet James Chatterton told Daryl that he is amazed, as he has never encountered a bird with audible respiratory problems of this intensity that has recovered.

Ra-2-B was found on Anchor Island with one leg caught in the fork of a tree, leading to severe dislocation and loss of circulation to that leg. She is being treated at the Dunedin Wildlife Hospital, and although her circulation has been mostly restored she may lose several toes. Daryl says it will be some time before the skin recovers and it becomes clear whether the tendons will recover from the trauma.

Queenie-3-A, who had a broken leg, has now fully recovered and will be returned to the wild soon.

Daryl reports that some juveniles, such as Suzanne-3-A, are now fully independent in the wild, have left their mothers and siblings and are ranging widely as they explore the islands.

He says the final official tally of how many chicks were produced in this year's breeding won't happen until everyone has been discharged from the vet hospitals.

Gadget the rodent detector dog

The story about conservation dog Gadget first played on Our Changing World. It was recorded on Whenua Hou and highlights the efforts that go into keeping pests off New Zealand's conservation islands.

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Paternity testing has revealed who the top kākāpō dads are, as well as the success of the artificial insemination programme, in episode 22 of the Kākāpō Files.

Artificial insemination (AI) of kākāpō has succeeded for the first time in a decade, and the Kākāpō Recovery Team at the Department of Conservation is very happy with the results.

Paternity testing has revealed that five eggs were successfully fertilised with inseminated sperm from three males, although two eggs died as early embryos and one chick died at just a few days old.

There are two surviving AI chicks, one of which is fathered by Sinbad, a male containing rare Fiordland genes which contribute important genetic diversity to a threatened species that has low genetic diversity overall.

Paternity testing has also revealed that two young males are star performers in what has been a record-breaking breeding season: Komaru and Horton have each fathered ten chicks.

Seven months after the largest kākāpō breeding season on record got off to a racing start, we finally have an answer to an outstanding question: who some of the kākāpō dads are.

Many female kākāpō mate with two and even three males, and in these cases genetic testing has to be used to determine who has fathered the chicks. It is also necessary to use genetic testing to determine fatherhood in the case of females who were inseminated with donor sperm after they had mated naturally.

The paternity testing is carried out by Agresearch using a process called genotyping by sequencing, drawing on genetic markers developed for kākāpō by Professor Bruce Robertson at the University of Otago.

Artificial insemination results

The kākāpō team, with help from German experts from the University of Giesen, carried out 15 artificial inseminations on 13 different females, and succeeded with three females.

Nora was successfully inseminated with Sinbad's sperm and two of her three fertile eggs were fathered by him (her third egg was fathered by Tutuko in a natural mating). Nora-1-B unfortunately died a few days after hatching. Nora 3-B is still alive but he is currently being treated for an aspergillosis infection.

Cyndy was successfully fertilised with sperm from founder male Merv, but the two fertile eggs died when they were about eight days old.

Margaret-Maree has an AI male chick fathered by Stumpy.

More interesting AI results

As well as revealing who the father is in cases of multiple matings, paternity testing has revealed some unusual results.

Tumeke mated with both Te Atapo and Boss, and for the first time ever in a natural clutch the chicks have mixed parentage: one chick was fathered by Boss and three by Te Atapo…

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The kākāpō health crisis is stable, with no further cases of aspergillosis diagnosed, and seven hand-reared chicks have been successfully released in the wild, in episode 21 of the Kākāpō Files.

Seven hand-reared kākāpō chicks have been released into the wild on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island, where they are doing well.

They are the oldest kākāpō chicks from this bumper breeding season. There are currently 72 living kākāpō chicks.

There are no new deaths in the aspergillosis disease outbreak which has claimed the lives of two adults and five chicks. Staff from the Kākāpō Recovery Programme at the Department of Conservation and zoo vets around the country are playing a waiting game, as a number of chicks and adults continue to be treated for the severe infection.

DOC is increasingly confident that they have identified all sick birds, as growing numbers of kākāpō mums sent to vet hospitals for CT scans are returning to Whenua Hou with clean bills of health.

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