At
least since we arrived in New Zealand and probably long before that Michael has
wanted to meet a kakapo. I didn’t hold out much hop as there are only 125 left
on the planet. A kakapo is a huge green and yellow flightless parrot and before
the arrival of man they lived throughout New Zealand. Now all of the surviving
birds live on Cod Fish Island, off the south coast of the South Island and are
all part of an intensive breeding program to bring their numbers up.
All
apart from one! Sirocco the Kakapo had to be hand reared as he was very ill
when he was a chick, and because of this Sirocco thinks that he human. This
meant he was pretty useless to the recovery program as he has no interest in
girl Kakapos.
Sirocco found fame when he was featured on ‘Last
Chance to See’ with Stephen Fry and his new found fame lead to him being
appointed New Zealand’s Official Spokesbird for Conservation. He now spends
some of his time traveling round New Zealand raising awareness of the Kakapos
plight. We were lucky enough to see him in August while he spent a few weeks at
Zealandia in Wellington.
Here is a little Go Pro video I made when we met him