Six Kakapo Chicks So Far...

There's another couple of Ranger Diary updates over at the Kakapo Recovery Programme website with news of 63 eggs laid so far, and a good 75% fertility rate. They have six chicks already hatched, four in nests, and two being hand-reared. This brings the total number of Kakapo up to 97. This really is going to be a bumper season, and everyone is working so hard down there. Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed, as we could be well on the way to 120 or 130 Kakapo by the end of the season!

Feb 28 diary Chris

Jason Malham, one of the kakapo rangers on Whenua Hou, fitted a pedometer to his hip last week to try to gauge just how many miles he was covering each day. A huge 29km in 36 hours was the answer! Considering the two directions one can travel on Whenua Hou are up and down, this is even more impressive!

Egg and chick checks

Our gracious nest controller (currently the lovely Sharon Trainor from our office in Invercargill) stays up all night fielding radio and telephone calls from all of the nests to let us know what each kakapo mum is up to so that we can monitor their performance as mums and make amendments as required. This could be the most exhausting job on the island perhaps, we have 26 nests so that means at least 52 calls to answer and that's assuming everything goes according to plan! Suffice to stay she sleeps a fair portion of the day away when her night job is over.