Kakapo puke sparks bidding war

Sirocco the Kakapo first shot to international fame after getting frisky with British celebrity Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwadine in the acclaimed TV series Last Chance to See in 2009.

Sirocco found Carwadine's hair inexplicably attractive, prompting Fry to exclaim: "You are being shagged by a rare parrot!"

Recently, and somewhat bizarrely, bidders on Trade Me clamoured to buy a unique piece of Sirocco-related history - his rejected 'pine chews' being sold on the popular online auction site. The 'parrot puke' eventually fetched $400!

The posting stated: "Not to be found anywhere else on the Mainland - this is a truly unique item. Impress your friends. Perturb your mother in law. Made of tenderly masticated pine needle and infused with the saliva of an extremely rare native parrot - and not just any old rare native parrot but Sirocco the famous head shagging parrot!"

Well, there you go. It was all for a good cause though - the money will be used to fund kakapo recovery.

How rat attack saved two NZ birds from extinction

A new book, Rat Island, documents the desperate rescue mission of two feathered NZ treasures - the flightless Kakapo and the tiny lesser-known Least Auklet, both island-dwelling birds being edged out by introduced species such as rats, weasels, stoats and ferrets - many of them introduced in the mid-1800s, ironically, to tackle the out-of-control rabbit population!


Rat Island rises from the icy gray waters of the Bering Sea, a mass of volcanic rock covered with tundra, midway between Alaska and Siberia. Once a remote sanctuary for enormous flocks of seabirds, the island gained a new name when shipwrecked rats colonized, savaging the nesting birds by the thousands. Now, on this and hundreds of other remote islands around the world, a massive-and massively controversial-wildlife rescue mission is under way.

Islands, making up just 3 percent of Earth's landmass, harbor more than half of its endangered species. These fragile ecosystems, home to unique species that evolved in peaceful isolation, have been catastrophically disrupted by mainland predators-rats, cats, goats, and pigs ferried by humans to islands around the globe.

To save these endangered islanders, academic ecologists have teamed up with professional hunters and semiretired poachers in a radical act of conservation now bent on annihilating the invaders. Sharpshooters are sniping at goat herds from helicopters. Biological SWAT teams are blanketing mountainous isles with rat poison. 

Rat Island reveals a little-known and much-debated side of today's conservation movement, founded on a cruel-to-be-kind philosophy.

Touring exotic locales with a ragtag group of environmental fighters, William Stolzenburg delivers both perilous adventure and intimate portraits of human, beast, hero, and villain. And amid manifold threats to life on Earth, he reveals a new reason to hope.

An endangered Kakapo on Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds.

Read this excellent review of Rat Island by Michael Scott at Plain Dealer.

A Least Auklet, the smallest species of Auk.

And watch this impressive display of hundreds of Least Auklets wheeling through the evening sky as they come home to roost, to get a sense of what could have been lost to us all forever:

Kakapo's priceless genes may help save species

A chick with "precious genes" has been flown from Codfish Island sanctuary to be treated by Wellington Zoo's resident kakapo expert.

The gangly grey chick is one of 11 hatchlings from this year's kakapo breeding season and could one day play an important role in the rare parrot's survival.

Kakapo have a 100 per cent herbivorous diet and rely on rimu fruit for much of their nutrition. In years when rimu trees fail to bear enough fruit, rangers give the birds pellets, but these can be too rich in protein and energy for the baby birds to tolerate.

Its mother, Solstice, was found on Stewart Island in June 1997. She was the first kakapo to be found and taken from the island in five years. She laid three eggs in 2002, but all of the chicks died before hatching. "This little chick is very precious, genetically," Dr Argilla said.

Solstice was artificially inseminated to increase the population's genetic diversity, so her chick would be a valuable breeding bird if it stayed healthy. Solstice One, believed to be a female, will be given an official name after her gender is confirmed and iwi have been consulted.

Dr Argilla said she completely disagreed with the suggestion by University of Adelaide scientist Cory Bradshaw this week that the "wonderfully weird" kakapo was among endangered species that were beyond saving.

"I don't think they are – DOC are doing such a good job," Dr Argilla said. "In 10 years they've managed to more than double the population, and also the big breeding seasons are happening closer and closer together, and there's now a higher percentage of females."

DOC's Kakapo Recovery Programme has increased the number of kakapo from 50 to 120 since 1995, not including the 11 chicks hatched this season.