KAKAPOS - Pearl flies home to Codfish Island

News from STUFF - New Zealand about Pearl the Kakapo...

A three-year-old female kakapo will have her own seat on a commercial flight back to Codfish Island today after being hospitalised at Massey University for the past seven months.

Pearl flies to Invercargill in her own seat, then will be helicoptered to her home off Stewart Island and returned to the wild.

Pearl, one of 83 kakapo left in the world, was flown to the university's vet clinic last year after an abscess was found on her bottom, Massey vet Brett Gartrell said.

"This is the first time a kakapo has been hospitalised for any length of time. She spent a month in a pen on the island, but she wasn't getting any better, so she was brought up here. We never thought she would stay in this long.

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