Bumper berry harvest reviving NZ kakapo’s populationAP, WELLINGTONThe world’s only flightless parrot species was once thought to be doomed by design. However, 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. However, conservationists kept looking, and in the late 1970s, a new population of the birds was discovered. One reason the kakapo population has grown slowly is that its breeding is, like everything about the birds, peculiar. Native birds are beloved in New ZealandPerhaps the only thing stranger than the kakapo is the lengths to which New Zealanders have gone to save it.

Source: Taipei Times February 24, 2026 17:44 UTC