Sounds island last hope for kakapo

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33965, 4 October 1975, Page 14

Sounds island last hope for kakapo

Unless a sufficient' number of kakapo could be transported to an island sanctuary, free of predators. the bird would become extinct. Mr D. Merton, of the Wildlife Division of the Internal Affairs Department. said at a meeting of the Association of Friends of the Canterbun- Museum. Mr Merton said that, with the help of the R.N.Z.A.F., the division had taken a number of birds to Maude Island, in the Marlborough Sounds. But it had taken many years to get the “green light •’ When the birds first arrived on the island, food was put out for them, but eventually they were weaned off. They had now established their own territories and track systems, Mr Merton said. The Wildlife Division has given highest priority to saving the kakapo. and last summer six more birds were found Maude Island was chosen as a sanctuary because it was one of the few islands

free of stoats, opossums, and pigs, which prey on the kakapo and its young. The kakapo was a flightless, nocturnal bird, which “rarely comes to life during the day,” Mr Merton said. He said it was very diffi-i cult to sex. the birds, and he did not know if any females existed. The most unusual feature of this bird is its courtship system. The males gather in clans and go to a display ground. There they maintain territory, and call to attract females for mating. This was known as booming, Mr Merton said. It had been heard up to five miles away across water. Mr Merton said that to capture the birds, he used a tape recorder to tape their call, and then a directional speaker to “whistle them up.” He also'’ used a muzzled dog, and found the birds easy to capture as they froze when con-: fronted, relying on their camouflage. Although kakapo were once found in Nelson. Southland. Fiordland, and the West Coast, they are now I known to exist only in Mil- 1 ;' ford, Mr Merton said. The species is quickly dying i out, now that stoats and'

three species of rat are in the Milford catchment. “We are probably too late, but we will try to save them, anyway,” he said.