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\n By Charlotte Graham-McLay with AP\n<\/p>\n
\n Published on
\n 27\/02\/2026 – 7:02 GMT+1\n <\/p>\n
The world\u2019s only flightless parrot species was once thought to be doomed by design. The kakapo is too heavy, too slow and, frankly, too delicious to survive around predators, and takes a shamelessly relaxed approach to reproduction.<\/p>\n
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But the nocturnal and reclusive native New Zealand bird’s fate is teetering toward survival after an unlikely conservation effort<\/a> that has coaxed the population from 50 to more than 200 over three decades. <\/p>\n This year, with a bumper crop of the strange parrot\u2019s favourite berries prompting a rare enthusiasm for mating<\/a>, those working to save the birds hope for a record number of chicks in February, which would move the kakapo closer to defying what was not long ago believed to be certain extinction.<\/p>\n Kakapo live on three tiny, remote islands off New Zealand\u2019s southern coast and chances to see them in the wild are scarce. This breeding season has launched one of the birds to internet fame through a livestreamed video<\/a> of her underground nest, where her chick hatched on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Smelly parrots the size of small cats<\/p>\n The kakapo is a majestic creature that can live for 60 to 80 years. But they\u2019re undoubtedly weird to look at.<\/p>\n The birds can weigh over 3 kilograms. They have owllike faces, whiskers, and mottled green, yellow and black plumage that mimics dappled light on the forest floor.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where the flightless parrot<\/a> lives, which has made its survival complicated.<\/p>\n \u201cKakapo also have a really strong scent,\u201d says Deidre Vercoe, the operations manager for the Department of Conservation\u2019s kakapo program. \u201cThey smell really musky and fruity \u2013 gorgeous smell.\u201d<\/p>\n The pungent aroma was bad news for the parrots when humans arrived in New Zealand<\/a> hundreds of years ago. The introduction of rats, dogs, cats and stoats, as well as hunting by people and destruction of native forest habitats, drove species of the country\u2019s flourishing flightless birds \u2013 the kakapo among them \u2013 to near or complete extinction.<\/p>\n By 1974, no kakapo were known to exist. Conservationists kept looking, however, and in the late 1970s, a new population of the birds was discovered.<\/p>\n Reversing their fortunes hasn\u2019t been simple.<\/p>\n Birds wait years or decades to breed<\/p>\n One reason the kakapo population has grown slowly is that its breeding is, like everything about the birds, peculiar. Years or even decades can pass between successful clutches of eggs.<\/p>\n A breeding season only happens every two to four years, in response to bumper crops of fruit<\/a> from the native rimu trees the parrots favour, which last happened in 2022. A huge food source is needed for chicks to survive but it\u2019s not known exactly how adult birds become aware of an abundant harvest.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re probably up there in the canopy assessing the fruiting,\u201d said Vercoe. \u201cWhen there\u2019s a large crop developing, they somehow tune into that.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s when things get really strange. Male kakapo position themselves in dug-out bowls in the ground and emit sonorous booming sounds followed by noises known as ‘chings’, which sound like the movement of rusty bedsprings.<\/p>\n The deep booms, which on clear nights can be heard across the forest, attract female kakapo to the bowls. Females can lay up to four eggs before raising their chicks alone.<\/p>\n Since January, admirers of the birds<\/a> have had a rare glimpse into the process through a livestream showing the underground nest of 23-year-old kakapo Rakiura on the island of Whenua Hou, where she has laid three eggs, two of them fertile. So precarious is the species\u2019 survival that the eggs were exchanged for fake replacements while the real ones were incubated indoors.<\/p>\n A technician on 24 February replaced the fake eggs with the first near-hatching egg. The kakapo kept her distance while the switch was made but quickly returned to the nest, seemingly unperturbed. The chick hatched just over an hour later. The second real egg was expected to be added within days.<\/p>\n Native birds are beloved in New Zealand<\/p>\n Perhaps the only thing stranger than the kakapo is the lengths to which New Zealanders have gone to save it. Quadrupling the population over the past three decades has required their relocation to three remote, predator-free<\/a> offshore islands and the micromanaging of the parrots\u2019 every romantic entanglement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do what we can to make sure we don\u2019t lose any further genetic diversity,\u201d Vercoe says. \u201cWe manage that carefully through having the best matches possible on each island.\u201d<\/p>\n Each bird has a name and is monitored by a small backpack tracker; if a bird vanishes, they\u2019re nearly impossible to find. With the kakapo still critically endangered<\/a>, there\u2019s little prospect of conservation efforts ending anytime soon, although those working with the birds are easing their hands-on management each breeding season.<\/p>\n The painstaking work to preserve the species might seem odd to outsiders, but the parrot is just one of many spirited and strange avians<\/a> in a country where birds reign supreme. The only native land mammals are two types of bat, so New Zealand\u2019s birds, which evolved eccentrically before human and predator arrival, have become beloved national symbols.<\/p>\n