DOC's work with kākā

The Department of Conservation has established a national project to co-ordinate kākā recovery. There are two main objectives of the project:

• To maintain a viable population of South Island kākā in the beech honeydew forests of the northern South Island. (The Rotoiti Nature Recovery Project aims to establish a mainland island reserve on the doorstep of Nelson Lakes National Park. This project will assist kākā by controlling predators within the reserve.)
• To study the effects of pest control on North Island kākā in the Waipapa ecological area with the aim of maintaining a viable population within a central North Island podocarp forest.

North Island kākā fitted with a radio
transmitter

Call of the wild

In 1996, nine juvenile kākā were released into the Pukaha Mount Bruce forest, in eastern Wairarapa, from where the species had been absent for nearly 50 years. They were a combination of hand-reared birds from the Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre and wild ones from Kapiti Island, near Wellington. This was the first time captive-bred kākā had been released into the wild and the first relocation of wild kākā.  The kākā project is part of pioneering species management work at the centre.