New Zealand's Weird Flightless Parrot Is in Mood for Romance

The world's only flightless parrot species was once thought to be doomed by design. The kakapo is too heavy, too slow and, frankly, too delicious to survive around predators, and takes a shamelessly relaxed approach to reproduction. But the AP reports that the nocturnal and reclusive New Zealand native bird's fate is teetering toward survival after an unlikely conservation effort that has coaxed the population from 50 to more than 200 over three decades. This year, with a bumper crop of the strange parrot's favorite berries prompting a rare enthusiasm for mating, those working to save the birds hope for a record number of chicks in February, which would move the kakapo closer to defying what was believed to be certain extinction.

Kakapo live on three tiny, remote islands off New Zealand's southern coast and chances to see them in the wild are scarce. This breeding season has launched one of the birds to internet fame through a livestreamed video of her underground nest, where her chick hatched Tuesday. The kakapo is a majestic creature that can live for 60 to 80 years. But they're undoubtedly weird to look at. They have owllike faces, whiskers, and mottled green, yellow and black plumage that mimics dappled light on the forest floor. That's where the flightless parrot lives, which has made its survival complicated. "Kakapo also have a really strong scent," said Deidre Vercoe, operations manager of the Department of Conservation's kakapo program. "They smell really musky and fruity—gorgeous smell."

One reason the kakapo population has grown slowly is that its breeding is peculiar. A breeding season only happens every two to four years, in response to bumper crops of fruit from the native rimu trees the parrots favor, which last happened in 2022. Perhaps the only thing stranger than the kakapo is the lengths to which New Zealanders have gone to save it. Quadrupling the population over the past three decades has required their relocation to three remote, predator-free offshore islands and the micromanaging of the parrots' every romantic entanglement. "We don't have the Eiffel Tower or the pyramids, but we do have kakapo and kiwi," Vercoe said. "It's a real New Zealand duty to save these birds."