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Four kākāpō are travelling from Codfish Island, near Stewart Island, to Waikato in an attempt to restore the mainland population of the beloved flightless bird species.
The four males will relocate to the Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari on Wednesday.
It will be the first time since the 1980s that a small kākāpō population will live outside one of five offshore islands where DOC alongside mana whenua have brought back the species from the brink of extinction.
DOC operations manager for kākāpō Deidre Vercoe said the population of the “critically endangered nocturnal ground-dwelling parrot” had doubled in the last 7 years and the current population was 248.
“Kākāpō are one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most iconic and rare species, recovering from a population low of 51 birds in 1995.
“Until now, kākāpō have been contained to a few predator-free offshore islands, so to have them now returning to the mainland is a major achievement for all involved,” Vercoe said.
DOC had been working with Ngāi Tahu to relocate the small population of kākāpō to the 3400ha of predator-free fenced sanctuary in Waikato.
“Kākāpō are masters at camouflage, so it is very unlikely visitors to the sanctuary will come across them.
“However, the potential to hear their distinctive ‘booming’ calls across the Waikato landscape for the first time in generations is an important milestone.
“It’s an exciting glimpse into what the future could be for our rare native birds, while serving as a reminder of why Predator Free 2050 is such an important goal,” Vercoe said.
Jake Osborne/Supplied
Bunker was one of the four male birds travelling to Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari on Wednesday.
Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu deputy kaiwhakahaere Matapura Ellison said the offshore breeding islands were almost at capacity, so the relocation to Maungatautari was a landmark for the recovery of this New Zealand endemic species.
Before the four male kākāpō relocated to Waikato, the endangered species which almost went extinct a century ago only lived on Anchor and Chalky islands in Fiordland, Codfish and Pearl islands near Stewart Island and Little Barrier Island near Auckland.
Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu kākāpō recovery group representative Tāne Davis had worked with kākāpō for the past 18 years.
He said the relocation of the kākāpō to Waikato was a success story made possible by mātauranga Māori and western science working together.
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The beloved flightless kākāpō came back from the brink of extinction over the past century and now there are 248 across the country.
“To keep the mauri of our taonga alive we have had to tweak our tikanga (traditions).
“Although I have felt mamae (hurt) at times, we have had to make the difficult decision to artificially inseminate kākāpō and practice double clutching to separate eggs from their parents, before hatching them using an incubator.
“Because the population is still low, we have also used genetic sequencing to trace the whakapapa linkages of our manu to reduce inbreeding and minimise abnormalities which were stopping eggs from hatching,” Davis said.
The translocation will be marked with a pōwhiri and celebration at Pōhara Marae followed by the release at the sanctuary on Wednesday.
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