For the Critically Endangered Kākāpō, 2016 was a good year. Thanks to the efforts of the Kākāpō Recovery Program rangers these birds seem to be recovering.

As a Kākāpō Ranger with the Kākāpō Recovery Program the work never ends. The Kākāpō is a beautiful Critically Endangered species endemic to New Zealand. For the past 25 years, the recovery program has been working to support the Kākāpō population. To date, the program has tripled the overall population, but this process is not easy. The rangers essentially monitor the birds in case they breed. If they do, rangers help play the role of mother by caring for the eggs.

Kākāpō breeding is a multi-step process that begins when the male creates a lek, which is a series of tracks and depressions that function as a courting area. The males will create these on a hill and spend eight hours each night for three to four months making calls to the females. Females make their way to whichever mate they select. The rangers keep a close eye on the male’s territory to see which females come to visit. After mating, the females return to their home range to lay three to four eggs. This is where the rangers really step in, explains Theo Thompson:

With any luck, if we’ve done a good job of monitoring, we will find her on a nest with a full clutch of eggs.

Rangers then remove the eggs, replacing them with plastic ones. This is a precautionary measure to ensure the mothers do not accidentally break the eggs, which happens when first-time mothers allow their eggs to roll around the nest. The real eggs are moved to incubators where they are closely monitored by the rangers to look for any signs of hatching.

Just prior to the hatching of the Kākāpō chicks, the rangers put the real eggs back into the nest so she can experience the hatching and begin to care for them right away. Sometimes a chick will hatch without any warning and, although this is not ideal, the rangers return the chicks to their mother’s nest. Experienced mothers appear to handle this very well, but inexperienced mothers do go through a moment of shock and surprise.

This year, there were a few setbacks, including a flash flood that killed three chicks. However, 2016 was still the best Kākāpō breeding season in the 25 years the program. In total, the program had 32 fledglings, which increased the population by 25% overall. Kākāpō are lucky to have such dedicated guardians working to conserve the species, but there is still more work to be done.

Featured photo: Kākāpō. Credit: Allie__Caulfield
Read the original article at BirdLife.org.
Other resources: Wikipedia