Kakapo Comeback

The Kakapo, a flightless, nocturnal, critically threatened New Zealand parrot that was long thought extinct, has staged a tiny comeback. Scientists are hailing the arrival of 34 kakapo chicks this year, propelling the total to 125. Ever since 18 kakapos were rediscovered in the fiord lands of southern New Zealand in 1973, scientists have made a dedicated effort to revive the population for going on forty years. So many chicks were born this year that there wasn’t enough of the ripe rimu fruit that composes the majority of the kakapo diet to go around, and 21 of the chicks are now being hand-reared in the nearby city of Invercargill. “They’ll need a lot of support for a long time yet,” says Mr. Merton, the original discoverer of the kakapo in the 70s, “but they are on the way.”