Get involved with kākā in Te Anau

Date:  01 September 2015

The event will be held at the sanctuary on Sunday 13 September 2015 from 10.30 am.

Activities will include making the kākā breakfast, creating toys for them to play with, crafting kākā masks and playing some kākā themed games. Participants are encouraged to bring lunch and stay on to picnic in the sanctuary’s grounds.

Michelle Crouchley, DOC Partnership Ranger, is organising the event to give Te Anau locals the chance to engage with the juvenile kākā prior to their release into the wild. 

“It is a great chance to celebrate the success of the last kākā breeding season and the contribution the sanctuary’s kākā are making to the conservation of their species.” 

DOC is also looking for volunteers to formally observe the juvenile kākā and record the behaviours they exhibit. These observations will help build up a picture of how the juveniles are affected by visitors, what enrichment activities they enjoy, and how they socialise with each other.

The female juveniles currently housed at the Punanga Manu o Te Anau/Te Anau Bird Sanctuary will be released into Abel Tasman National Park as part of Project Janszoon.  Abel Tasman has a residual population of male kākā and it is hoped that they will breed with the young females. 

The male juvenile reared at the sanctuary will be released into Orokonui Ecosanctuary, near Dunedin, where a population of kākā is being established. 

The resident pair of adult kākā, Charlie Brown and Bling, will be joined at the sanctuary by a second pair in time for the 2015/16 breeding season.

Punanga Manu o Te Anau/Te Anau Bird Sanctuary

• The sanctuary is managed by DOC on on land vested to Fish & Game. The sanctuary is home to some of New Zealand’s rarest native birds and offers the chance for visitors to Te Anau to see these beautiful creatures up close.
• Birds that live at the sanctuary are either unable to survive in the wild or are part of a captive breeding for release programme.

Kākā breeding at the sanctuary

• In 2015 the sanctuary joined DOC’s kākā captive breeding programme as a result of the resident kākā pair, Charlie Brown and Bling, successfully rearing chicks for the first time.
• The focus of DOC’s kākā captive breeding programme is to rear juveniles for release into ecosystem recovery projects, with the aim of establishing self-sustaining populations.

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