Tragic news for the Kakapo Recovery Programme in this article from
The New Zealand Herald.
The man who led the programme to save New Zealand's native parrot, the kakapo, has been sidelined into a technical desk job in a drastic Conservation Department cost-cutting exercise that will axe 13 jobs.
The $2.1 million cuts involve disbanding the biodiversity recovery unit.
...
Kakapo recovery programme leader Paul Jansen has been assigned to writing standard operating procedures.
The scientist in the kakapo team has been shifted to a 'site management' unit and the vet in the team has been moved into other work.
Also of note this week, a Maori cloak made of Kakapo feathers is to remain in Scotland.
Preserved Maori heads and rare feather cloaks are in storage in a Scottish museum, despite the efforts of a Lower Hutt doctor to bring them home.
Stewart Reid emigrated to New Zealand from Scotland almost 30 years ago. On a visit back to Scotland in the 1980s he came across an 18th-century kakapo feather cloak on display in Perth Museum and Art Gallery. He was told by museum staff it was the only one of its kind in the world.
