9 minute read
KĀKĀ IN THE ABEL TASMAN
KĀKĀ FEATURE
ABELIN THE TASMAN Words: Robyn Janes, Project Janszoon
The Abel Tasman National Park has a new bunch of residents. They’re loud, nosy, mischievous, and like to party – but no-one is complaining.
Things are definitely not as quiet at Wairima/Bark Bay since 24 kākā, a forest dwelling parrot native to New Zealand, were translocated there in October 2019.
The morning after the young native birds were released into the wild they began calling loudly around 3am. Visitors staying in the Bark Bay hut were offered ear plugs but declined, saying they preferred the sound of the kākā to their human companions’ snoring.
“Everyone loves seeing and hearing the kākā,” says Project Janszoon Director Bruce Vander Lee. “They are such charismatic birds, and it is so wonderful to see them flying free, in the wild, for the first time in their lives.” Wind back 100 years or so and large flocks of kākā used to be seen regularly in the Abel Tasman National Park and throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. But their habit of nesting in tree holes made the birds easy pickings for introduced predators like stoats that were brought here by unknowing immigrants to control rabbits.
“In 2012, when Project Janszoon began working with the Department of Conservation to bring the wildlife back to the Abel Tasman, kākā were ‘functionally extinct’ in the park,” says Bruce. “There were only a few wild males remaining as the female population had been killed over time, on the nest, where they’re vulnerable”.
With the aim of returning native species to the park, Project Janszoon, DOC and the Abel Tasman Birdsong Trust first began removing the predators. As you wander the tracks of the Abel Tasman you will notice extensive trapping networks which now cover over 90% of the park. This network is also partly funded by Air New Zealand. (Cont’d)
A handful of captive raised female kākā were the first to be released at the top of the park by Project Janszoon and DOC in 2015. Transmitters were delicately attached to the birds with rangers having to work carefully to avoid the kākā’s sharp beaks. These small transmitters are a valuable conservation tool, allowing the birds to be tracked. Imagine the excitement when monitoring revealed two of the captive-bred females had hooked up with wild males.
A milestone for conservation.
The summer of 2019 was hugely significant when these two pairs produced six kākā chicks that successfully fledged in the upper reaches of the Abel Tasman. These kākā were the first to be hatched in the park in living memory. “The successful fledging of these chicks is the first step to kākā recovery in the Abel Tasman. But we needed a critical mass to really kick-start the population,” says Project Janszoon ornithologist Ron Moorhouse.
Hatching a plan.
Ron knows his stuff when it comes to kākā. He did a PhD on the birds, and has spent much of his employment working with kākā, and another charismatic native, the kakapo. Along with other experts from the Department of Conservation (DOC) Ron devised a plan to release over 20 kākā on the coast of the Abel Tasman, where they would be protected in the heart of the predator control network and more visitors would have a chance to see them. This would be the most kākā ever released at one time in New Zealand.
However it is no easy task to source kākā with northern South Island genetics. It was decided to take eggs from wild nests in nearby Kahurangi and Nelson Lakes National Parks where there are healthy kākā populations. Then the eggs would be artificially incubated and the chicks hand-reared for release. “This is the first time kākā eggs and nestlings have been taken from wild nests to establish a new population in a predator controlled site,” says Ron. First, the team had to capture and radio-tag female kākā in the wild using mist nets so they could attach a specially developed egg-timer transmitter to the wild birds. A fixed wing plane was then able to fly over vast areas of forest to ascertain when nesting was happening. This was a huge labour saver as it meant there was no need to keep checking the nests. Slippery polythene was placed around trees to make it impossible for predators to climb the trunk to reach the nesting birds. “When we knew they were nesting, we went in, found the nests, climbed up, took the eggs out, and then took them back to the captive facilities,” says Ron. He makes it sound easy, but successfully retrieving kākā eggs involves a high level of expertise. Ron and DOC rangers like Dan Arnold spent days in remote bush first catching the adult birds and then some months later returning to extract the eggs. The eggs, or young chicks, were placed inside small battery operated incubators and gently transported to breeding facilities around the country to be hand raised. In one case the timing was a little tight with a chick hatching in the back of a car en-route to Nelson. “I’d never transported this number of eggs before but all of the viable eggs we got out hatched and all of the wild pairs whose eggs were taken for this project re-nested and had another clutch in the wild,” says Ron.
Once hatched, the birds were intensively reared, initially hand-fed from early in the morning until midnight. Twelve kākā were successfully hand-raised and another twelve were bred as part of the South Island Kākā Captive Breeding programme. Huge thanks must go to Natureland Wildlife Trust, The Wildlife Hospital - Dunedin, Dunedin Botanic Garden, Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre, Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, DOC Te Anau, Queens Park Invercargill, Orokonui Ecosanctuary and Bush Haven for their great work rearing the chicks.
A joy to see.
By the spring of 2019, 24 kākā were ready to be translocated to the Abel Tasman. It’s a thrill to see birds released into the wild and a large crowd gathered at Wairima/Bark Bay to see the kākā released from a specially built aviary where they had spent two weeks acclimatising.
Rima Piggott of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rārua was there to bless the manu (birds) and says it’s important to return taonga (treasured) species to the wild. “What we’re trying to do as a Māori community is ensure we leave a legacy behind. I want to be a good tupuna (ancestor), and I want my mokopuna (grandchildren) and all my descendants, to enjoy seeing taonga species like kākā,” she says.
Let them be wild
DOC biodiversity ranger John Henderson has been a key part of the team re-introducing kākā into the park. He says the birds will forage for a huge variety of food in the wild like berries, nuts, grubs and honeydew. “Hopefully one day we’ll have huge flocks of kākā around, flying from food source to food source,” he says. The birds do have a lot to learn but, so far, so good. They are regularly spotted foraging for food and as time goes by they are being seen further afield, in places like Anchorage and Awaroa.
The birds do need to be protected from well-meaning people though. John says they are quite capable of finding their own food, and visitors should not feed them as it can make them sick. “We are lucky to be able to learn from places like Wellington where people feeding kākā caused serious problems. Kākā need to eat a natural diet and to help them adapt to life in the wild they need to be left to find their own food,” he says. Signage has been erected to educate visitors about the birds diet, and tourism operators working in the park are being very supportive, briefing visitors to the park about how to care for the kākā.
The answers to your questions.
Over summer, Abel Tasman Youth Ambassadors also spent time in the park educating visitors about the kākā. Ten-year-old Sophie Maxwell is a youth ambassador from Ngatimoti School. The school has adopted Wairima / Bark Bay as their “section” of the park as part of Project Janszoon and DOC’s education programme. “I think kākā are amazingly striking birds. They are really inquisitive and they have this gorgeous bronze colouring underwing and yellow on their cheeks. I just love them,” she says.
According to Sophie the most frequent questions visitors ask about the kākā are; How old are they? How many were released? Will they mate? And, most often, where am I most likely to see them in the park? Her answers; When they were released in 2019 they were about nine months old. 24 were released at Bark Bay. We hope they will mate and we will get the first chance to see if they can successfully breed at the next beech mast. And, finally, where are you most likely to see them?
“As the kākā spread through the park it’s getting harder to predict where they’ll be but they are still spotted pretty regularly at Bark Bay hut, near where they were released,” advises Sophie.
What next?
The true test of the success of this translocation will be during the next beech mast, when beech trees provide an enormous amount of seed. Masts are triggered by a summer that is warmer than the previous one and usually occur every two to six years. South Island kākā only breed in a beech mast so all eyes will be on the birds during the next one to see whether these kākā breed in the wild.
“We are confident they will breed and kākā numbers in the park will increase. It will be magical seeing these wonderful birds thrive in the native forests of the Abel Tasman,” says Bruce Vander Lee.
HOW TO SPOT A KĀKĀ...
You will often hear kākā before you see them as they chatter and squawk. Māori refer to them as ‘gossips’ as they chatter in groups. They are olive-brown in colour with a bright red-orange underwing and deep crimson belly. Kākā weigh anything from 340 to 400 g (around 14 ounces) and can be up to 44 cm long. You may see them scraping bark from trees to find tasty food. Kākā are sometimes confused with the alpine parrot, kea. Kea are occasionally seen in the Abel Tasman. They are a bigger parrot than kākā and an olive green colour with scarlet underwings.
WHAT TO DO IF A KĀKĀ IS TOO FRIENDLY
When it comes to kākā encounters, if one does land on you it’s fine to gently shoo it away or brush it off, and please don’t feed them. We want the birds to be wild and limiting their interactions with humans is key to this.
