Kākāpō Chicks Surge After Rare Berry Bloom

Love Island: Rare berry bonanza spurs Kākāpō babe boom

A monolithic bloom of rimu berries fueled a mating surge among nan world’s heaviest (and strangest) parrots

By Elizabeth Anne Brown edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier

Kākāpō trust chiefly connected rimu berries to reproduce—and this year’s immense harvest group nan mood.

Brent Stephenson

The biggest berry bloom successful New Zealand’s forests successful decades has group disconnected a mating frenzy among nan critically endangered Kākāpō, nan world’s beefiest parrot.

With nan look of a Muppet and nan physique of a Furby, nan Kākāpō is an all-around preposterous creature. It’s nocturnal, lime greenish and, arsenic science-fiction writer Douglas Adams wrote, “flies for illustration a brick.” The animals nutrient a strong, fruity musk, tin measurement arsenic overmuch arsenic a location feline and tin perchance unrecorded for 90 years aliases more.

At nan opening of 2026 only 236 Kākāpōs stay successful nan world, and to nan chagrin of their quality conservation team, nan birds chiefly trust connected a azygous consequence to group nan temper for love. That intends nan animals mate prolifically only erstwhile nan rimu tree—a towering conifer that tin unrecorded for a millennium—produces a bumper harvest of agleam reddish berries, which happens each 2 to 4 years.

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During nan berry-backed courtship rituals, antheral Kākāpōs utilized their stumpy small feet to scrape and stomp retired earthen amphitheaters called “booming bowls,” which amplify their courtship song—a resonant, low-pitched telephone that carries for miles. “Rather than proceeding it, you benignant of consciousness it successful nan chest,” says Andrew Digby, subject advisor for nan Kākāpō squad astatine nan New Zealand Department of Conservation.

Kākāpō connected her nest.

Andrew Digby/New Zealand Department of Conservation

Nearly each female Kākāpōs of reproductive property person bred this year, Digby says, producing an awesome 240 eggs and counting. About half of nan eggs will beryllium fertile. Fewer will hatch, and less still will past agelong capable to fledge. As of March 3, scientists person tallied 26 surviving chicks.

These organization gains wouldn’t person been imaginable without a fistful of Kākāpō “superbreeders,” including Blades, a Kākāpō Don Juan of chartless property who, aft fathering 22 chicks since 1982, has been banished to “Bachelor Island” for fears that he’ll flood nan cistron pool. “He was a unfortunate of his ain success,” Digby says. “He was excessively popular.”

A newborn chick being weighed.

Lydia Uddstrom/New Zealand Department of Conservation

Once nan fortunate eggs hatch, nan females will rear their chicks alone. Every nighttime Kākāpō moms usage beak and talon to climb up 100 feet to nan rimu character canopies to harvest berries—about a pound’s worthy per chick each day. Some females person reproduced for much than 40 years, creating beardown “dynasties,” he says. One Kākāpō matriarch named Nora has participated successful 13 breeding cycles since 1981 and stands to go some a mom and a great-great-grandmother this season. This twelvemonth you tin watch Kākāpō supermom Rakiura connected a nest cam arsenic she hatches and rears 2 chicks, fending disconnected nest intruders that see shorebirds and bats. Although Rakiura is only 24 years old, she has successfully raised 9 of her ain chicks and fostered galore much for little knowledgeable females. Right now nan chicks look for illustration dandelion puffs, but wrong a fewer weeks, they’ll go “weird small dinosaurs pinch these huge, oversized feet,” Digby says.

The squad hopes capable chicks will past this twelvemonth to bring nan world Kākāpō organization to 300—a awesome milestone for a type that was teetering pinch conscionable 51 individuals successful 1995. The flightless birds were easy pickings for invasive predators, including location cats, dogs and weasel-like stoats—the fruity eau de Kākāpō is pungent capable that moreover humans tin way them by scent. The Kākāpōs recovered sanctuary connected 3 predator-free islands belonging to nan Ngāi Tahu, whose tribespeople enactment arsenic kaitiaki, aliases caretakers, of nan birds. “It’s a taonga species, a wealth to us,” says Tāne Davis, who has been nan Ngāi Tahu’s typical successful Kākāpō conservation for 20 years.

One-day-old Kākāpō chick.

Lydia Uddstrom/New Zealand Department of Conservation

The Kākāpōs person outgrown these mini refuges, and nan unit is connected to “restore nan mauri, aliases life force, of nan habitat” connected larger islands by removing nan invasive predators there, Davis says.

The 2026 breeding rhythm represents a caller era for Kākāpōs, Davis and Digby agree. At nan Ngāi Tahu’s request, immoderate of nan chicks calved this twelvemonth won’t beryllium named. “It’s astir letting them person their lives backmost successful nan wild,” Davis says.