Jimmy the kākāpō
Image: Andrew Digby | DOC

Our team caught up with Jimmy in late November. When we found him, he had a wing injury.

Suspecting the wing was broken, we flew him off Whenua Hou to get a full veterinary check-up in Invercargill. An x-ray cleared him of broken bones and he was declared well enough to return home to the island where it was anticipated that any soft tissue damage would gradually heal.

Sadly, when we went to check on him 2 weeks later he had just passed away. Necropsy results revealed the death was due to a rare complication with his trachea (wind pipe) following his anaesthetic procedure.

All those involved are deeply saddened by this death. All veterinary procedures have a small degree of risk and this is balanced against the often greater risk of doing nothing.

We work tirelessly to care for this taonga species, and any loss hits us very hard in our efforts protecting this special species.