The kākāpō answers almost every expectation of a parrot with an exception. It cannot fly. It walks the night with an owl-like face and a waddling gait.Source 1
It is the heaviest parrot in the world, and possibly the longest-lived bird, with lives measured in many decades.Source 1
It is also the world’s only lek-breeding parrot: in breeding years, males boom across the hills for nights on end.Source 1
Kākāpō are taonga—a treasured species—to Ngāi Tahu, the principal Māori iwi of southern New Zealand.Source 1
Once found across New Zealand, kākāpō nearly vanished after human arrival brought hunting, habitat loss, and predators their ground-nesting lives could not survive.Source 1
Every kākāpō alive today lives wild on predator-free islands or in fenced sanctuaries, watched over by the Kākāpō Recovery programme.Source 1Source 2
Its keepers contend with low hatching success and the constant need for more predator-free habitat—and still the population has grown.Source 1Source 2
To witness the kākāpō is to learn how much care a species can require, and receive.Source 1
