World's Heaviest Parrot Set To Have Successful Mating Season After Bumper Berry Crop

Conservationists in New Zealand are more optimistic than ever about breeding season for the country's critically endangered species of parrot, following an abundance of a native fruit crop.

Earlier this month, the country's Department of Conservation (DOC) announced that breeding season was officially underway for the kākāpō bird, a nocturnal, flightless parrot that weighs in at as much as 8 pounds, making them the heaviest species of parrot in the world.

"It's always exciting when the breeding season officially begins, but this year it feels especially long-awaited after such a big gap since the last season in 2022," said DOC Kākāpō recovery operations manager Deidre Vercoe in a press release.

"Now it is underway, we expect more mating over the next month, and we are preparing for what might be the biggest breeding season since the program began 30 years ago," Vercoe said.

These birds — which can live as long as 89 years and can climb up to 100 feet into the tree canopy to pick fruit — have a wild population of just 236 across New Zealand and have a unique breeding schedule, in which they mate every few years when the native rimu tree undergoes a mass fruiting event. Most kākāpō mothers typically raise one chick per season.

The mass fruiting event last took place in 2022, and according to reports from the Washington Post and the Guardian, conservationists were relieved this year to observe a bumper crop of the tree's berrylike fruit, which serve as a source of calcium and vitamin D for the birds.

“We’ve got a really big rimu crop developing on the trees and the birds haven’t bred for four years so we’re hoping that they will all get into the action this summer,” Vercoe told the Guardian.

Andrew Digby, a biologist at New Zealand's Department of Conservation, told the Post that the rimu fruit crop is so plentiful this season that he anticipates over 50 new chicks to hatch around February — which would mark the most productive mating season on record for the species.

The kākāpō population began to struggle after large waves of human settlement arrived in New Zealand and non-native predators like cats and rats were introduced. According to the Post, there was a brief period in the 1970s during which officials couldn't find a single bird.

Conservation efforts got underway in the decade that followed, per the Post.

A large group of the birds was located in southern Rakiura, an island off New Zealand's southern tip, and between 1980 and 1997, conservationists moved all the birds they could find to three offshore sanctuary islands and removed all non-native predators so they could breed in peace.

Kākāpō are known as a quirky species (one male bird named Sirocco is credited with inspiring the party parrot emoji after a clip of him seemingly attempting to mate on the head of a BBC documentarian went viral in 2009).

“Technically, it’s a bird,” Digby told the Post, comparing the species moss with the face of an old man. “But really, they’re more like the bird version of a badger.”

Conservationists believe breeding efforts have been successful — so much so that Vercoe said the issue of where to put the birds has become a topic of conversation.

“We are actually running out of space for kākāpō and predator-free, good-quality habitat,” she told the Guardian. “It’s an exciting turning point for the program – how do we keep growing the population, but how do we take steps back and where do we put them?”

According to Vercoe, these flightless birds ares still considered critically endangered — "so we’ll keep working hard to increase numbers" — but she stills notes that chick numbers are not the only measure of success.

"We want to create healthy, self-sustaining populations of kākāpō that are thriving, not just surviving," she said in the press release.

"This means with each successful breeding season, we’re aiming to reduce the level of intensive, hands-on management to return to a more natural state. We’re working towards the goal of returning them to their former range around New Zealand so that one day, hearing a kākāpō boom might be a normal part of naturing."