Kakapo chicks to be raised at Southland Museum

  • Breaking
  • 25/11/2014

By 3 News online staff

Museums are normally home to relics and antiques, but the Southland Museum will now become the place of new life after a decision to raise critically endangered Kakapo at the facility.

The $425,000 deal was brokered by Invercargill City Council first-term councillor Karen Arnold, who is also a Kakapo Recovery Programme advocate.

There are only 126 of the birds in the wild, with the main breeding population on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island near Stewart Island.

The bird's plight gained international attention in a documentary starring British writer, comedian and actor Stephen Fry, and kakapo Sirocco, in 2009. Sirocco is also the official spokesbird and ambassador for the species.

The Kakapo Chick Unit, which will be a world first, is planned to be open for the 2016 breeding season.

A 400sqm outdoor enclosure is planned for the birds where they will learn to climb and forage for food as they get older, before being released on Codfish Island.

Ms Arnold says the idea to breed the chicks in the city isn't new, but it was "simply a case of getting the right people together" to discuss the plan.

The latest proposal was unanimously agreed to by the council, the museum and the Art Gallery Trust board.

Ms Arnold says kakapo chicks to be released on the island are currently hand-raised in Invercargill, done in secret and in a makeshift converted storeroom, but will now be raised in public.

Kakapo Recovery manager Deidre Vercoe-Scott says the purpose-built enclosure will showcase the conservation work going into increasing the birds' population.

Because the birds don't breed every year, the enclosure will be part of a bigger display about the wider conservation effort to bring the species back from the brink.

The council also agreed to an annual $50,000 donation to the programme if current major sponsor NZ Aluminium Smelters pulls out of the project at the end of next year, as it has signalled.

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source: newshub archive