Kakapo
Tagged: animal, animals, bird, cat, dog, fish, mammal
Strigops habroptilus
Conservationists saved this extraordinary parrot by translocating the few remaining birds to predator free islands, but the population is still extremely small and inherently at risk. The kakapo is the heaviest parrot, one of the few nocturnal species in its family, and the only one that is completely flightless. It lives mainly on the ground, where its massive legs and feet enable it to travel far and quite fast. It uses its wings to balance when running at speed and climbing up leaning trunks and branches, and to break its fall as it parachutes from branches or down steep slopes. It is incapable of gliding, let alone powered flight. Like so much about this exceptional parrot, its social life (or lack of it) and reproductive behavior are remarkable. In contrast to other parrots, which are among the most gregarious and sociable of birds, the kakapo is solitary except during courtship, and then the interactions between males are highly aggressive; researchers who kept kakapos together found they would attack and even kill one another. The kakapo is the only parrot species with a “lek” breeding system, in which several rival males assemble at a shared “arena” on summer nights to attract females to mate with them. This arena consists of a complex system of well-defined paths, linking a number of bowl-shaped depressions in the ground. Both paths and bowls are made by the males, and each male has a bowl of his own. He fits inside it and inflates the air sac within his chest until he swells up like a big green balloon, then releases the air to produce the loud, booming calls that act as a magnet for the waiting females. The bowl amplifies the strange sound, which is audible to humans from up to 3 miles (5 km) away.
Each male has to spend many nights booming up to 1,000 times an hour-to secure a mate. He also 180 carefully cleans his tracks and bowl, and defends them fiercely against rival males. After mating, a female is on her own. Having laid her eggs, she must incubate them for a month and may care for the young for a further nine months. All this activity requires a great deal of energy from both sexes. It is hardly surprising, then, that kakapos do not breed every year, but only irregularly at intervals of three to five years, triggered by the periodic abundance (known as “malting”) of seeds and fruit of certain key plant species, such as the native rimu tree.
To the Brink of Extinction
Evidence from preserved bones shows that for some time after the first Maori settlers arrived in New Zealand about 1,000 years ago, the kakapo was found throughout most of the country. However, with the Maori colonization of the land the kakapo’s range started contracting. The birds suffered as the settlers altered habitats, and especially as they introduced dogs and Pacific rats, which hunted down the birds as did the Maori themselves. The Maori ate them and also valued their feathers for making cloaks. Evolving on a group of oceanic islands that had no native mammalian predators (New Zealand lacks any native mammals apart from three species of bat), the kakapo had no need to evolve defenses against them and so was especially vulnerable. Kakapo mothers had to search for food at night, leaving their eggs and chicks unattended and so even more vulnerable. After Europeans colonized New Zealand from the early 19th century, they introduced other carnivorous mammals such as stoats, cats, dogs, black and brown rats, and Australian brush-tailed possums. These animals caused even more devastation among kakapo populations. By 1976 only 18 birds were known to exist in the remote mountain country of Fiordland, in the southwest corner of South Island, and all of them were males. By 1989 the Fiordland birds-the last mainland population-were gone.
However, in 1977 the dramatic discovery was made of about 150 kakapos living on Stewart Island, the largest of New Zealand’s offshore islands. Over half the birds were being killed each year by feral cats. Between 1980 and 1992 the 61 kakapos on Stewart Island were moved to predator-free offshore islands. Today kakapos are tagged with miniature radio transmitters, and every nest is constantly monitored using infrared video cameras. Kakapo eggs and nestlings are kept warm with heating pads when the females leave to forage at night. Providing extra food has increased the frequency and the success of breeding attempts, and researchers are currently investigating whether rimu trees can be induced to fruit using plant hormones. Thanks to the work of conservationists and to a run of three successful breeding seasons, the kakapo population is at last increasing. There are currently 62 kakapos, comprising 36 males and 26 females, of which 50 are capable of breeding, six are subadults, and six are juveniles. Even so, there is a long way to go before the kakapo is secure.
Kakapo (owl parrot) Strigops habroptilus
- Family: Psittacidae
- World population: 62 birds
- Distribution: Translocated birds on 4 New Zealand offshore islands: Maud, Inner Chetwode, Codfish, and Pearl
- Habitat: Mainly forest edges and forests in younger stages of growth
- Size: Length: 23-25 in (58-64 cm); wingspan: 33-36 in (84-91 cm)
- Form: Large, stout-bodied parrot with hairlike facial disk, short, broad bill with cere (bare skin at base containing nostrils) prominent and swollen; short, broad wings; scruffy, downcurved tail; massive, fleshy legs and feet with powerful claws; plumage moss-green on upperparts and greenish-yellow on underparts; mottled and barred with brown and yellowish; male has wider head and much bigger bill and is about 25% heavier than female
- Breeding: Breeds every 2-5 years, coinciding with bumper crops of food plants; nests inside rotting fallen tree trunks, in hollow tree stumps, or under clumps of vegetation; 1-3 white eggs incubated by the female for 30 days; fledging period 10-12 weeks; may not attain sexual maturity until 6-9 years old
- Related endangered species: There are no other members of the subgroup. Strigopini, but 2 other threatened New Zealand parrots, the kaka (Nestor meridionalis) and kea (N. notabilis), may be related; some experts think that the kakapo may be related to the night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) and the ground parrot (Pezoporus wallicus) of Australia
I am enamored with the kakapo and would love to have the experience of holding one!