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I have just adopted

Miss Chicken

Miss Chicken

Little three legged cat with attitude
Admiral
A kakapo called Ralph.

Though I guess that it is more correct to say that I am sponsoring him for a year.

I took my cat Spider to the vet for his annual checkup and I thought he might need dental work so I had budgeted for a $700 vet bill. However the vet said he had very good teeth for a cat his age (12 and a half). I therefore only had a smallish vet bill to pay, so why not put some of the money I saved towards an animal cause. I am not sure if Spider really approves me 'adopting' a large, flightless, green parrot.

The reason that I selected this particular kakapo is he is the kakapo that met Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine in the book 'Last Chance to See'. Ralph was found in 1987 so he is at least 30 years old.

There are less than 130 living kakapo.
 
That's very nice of you. Where does Ralph live? Are they trying to breed more kakapos to increase the population? Do they live in the wild or just in captivity?
 
Is this the same kakapo who tried to get his leg over Mark Carwardine when he and Stephen Fry revisited the reserve?

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opv8vZ6RvB0[/yt]
 
There are 125 kakapo. They live on three predator-free islands off the south coast on New Zealand.

Kakapo do not breed every year. They breed in 2009, 2011 and in 2014. The youngest age at which a female has bred is 6 years old but generally it is older than that. The 2009 season resulted in 33 hatchlings but the number of chicks in the next two breeding season were much smaller. It will interesting to see is there is a boom when the females of 2009 start to breed.

There are some interesting facts on this Wikipedia page including the names of all known kakapo.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kakapo
 
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There's more information about the kakapo in this clip from The Rachel Maddow Show. It also shows Maddow losing it and nearly falling out of her chair with laughter at the clip's end. (Same Fry video but slightly edited.)

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeisOV4FAWw[/yt]
 
As Douglas Adams commented, the male kakapo's mating strategy seems very ineffective:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCsHuoVABgI[/yt]
 
Awww, I wish I could get shagged by a rare parrot.

That sounds like it should be a Monty Python routine.....
 
Sirocco's nickname since he tried to shag Mark Carwadine has been 'Big Green Budgie of Love (BGBOL).

I love the tale of Sirocco's grandfather, Rangi. In 1987, Rangi who did not have a transmitter, vanished and was given up for dead. Then in 2008, 21 years later, he turned up to everyone's amazement. He now has a transmitter so he can't. Do his vanishing act again.
 
That's awesome, Miss Chicken! Just think, your care will be instrumental in keeping a rare species alive!
 
I have received my adoption certificate, plush kakapo, bookmarks and stickers. It took a while for them to reach me as I overlooked a email they sent me asking me to confirm my address.

There has been several matings this season and kakapo lovers are waiting to see if any eggs will be laid.

image_24.jpeg
 
Congratulations. :) And I love the plush kakapo. Can Americans adopt these guys?
 
I assume so. There are three level of adoption. I went for the bronze which cost me $NZ100 and got the smallest size plush toy.

I have also said that if there is a breeding season I will make a $10 donation for hatchling.
 
The first hatchling for this breeding season has hatched on Anchor Island, the first egg to ever hatch there.

The mother is 7 year old Tiwhiri and this is her hatchling.

Even more amazing is that on Codfish Island, Nora - mother of Zephyr, and grandmother of Sirocco (Spokesbird for New Zealand) - has mated successfully for the first time in 35 years.
 
No-one knows for sure how long they live. The oldest birds alive today are those captured in the early 1980s. Nora was first captured in 1980 and her daughter, Zephyr, hatched in 1981. That means it is likely that Nora was at least 7 years old in 1981 making her at least 42 now. I gather it is quite hard to tell an adult kakapo's age. It is possible that kakapo might live to be 90 or 95 years old.
 
We might see significant growth in kakapo numbers at the end of this decade. Female usually start to breed at around 9 to 11 years though two did breed at 6 years of age (both in 2008) and the current hatchling has a 7 year old mother.

13 females were born in 2009 and another 8 in 2011. When these females reach breeding age we should see a jump in the numbers.
 
If breeding age is seven years old, that could start happening shortly.
 
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