Imagine not having chicks for 23 years? That’s the story of Jean the kākāpō. And she’s had a colourful life. She was found in 1981 on Stewart Island, on a place called ‘Heidi Ridge’, and moved to Maud Island for a year, before being shifted to Little Barrier Island alongside seventeen other birds to save them from predation by feral cats. After that, she promptly disappeared for ten years until she was rediscovered in 1992 sitting on a clutch of eggs. Unfortunately, they were infertile — but she

Kākāpō are breeding this year for the first time since 2022. Kākāpō are mast-breeding birds, meaning that on the southern islands of New Zealand they breed when the rimu fruit ripens, an event that occurs every two to five years. Only 237 kākāpō remain, and breeding will occur across Whenua Hou, Chalky Island, Anchor Island, and possibly Coal Island too. This is expected to be the largest breeding season on record, with perhaps ninety females participating. It’s also a critical one, only twenty-

The last female kākāpō found on Stewart Island passed away this week. Solstice, the female kākāpō, died in Dunedin after being hospitalised for several months with cloacitis, sometimes called “crusty bum”, a disease that, unfortunately, has claimed a number of kākāpō over the years. Solstice’s story is one that’s close to me, because she was the first kākāpō we ever wrote about for New Zealand Conservation Stories back in 2020. She was discovered in 1997 on Stewart Island, four years after the l