11 Kakapo chicks hatched in 2011 season

Kakapo chicks are being hand reared this year due to lack of food. Credit DOC.

May 2011. Six of the 11 kakapo chicks hatched on Whenua Hou (Codfish Island) this breeding season have been transferred to a hand rearing facility in Invercargill. Kakapo Recovery programme manager Deidre Vercoe Scott said the healthy chicks would be hand-reared for up to eight weeks, before being returned to Whenua Hou.

"Once they reach certain milestones in their development, they will be ready to return to their natural environment. This short-term intervention will ensure they get the best start possible," she said.

Vital Rimu crop failed and chicks would have died
The Rimu crop, which is the natural diet the mothers raise their chicks on, failed to ripen this season. Left to their own devises all 11 chicks would have died. Four of the mothers have managed to continue feeding a single chick, relying on the supplementary food provided to them by staff and volunteers.

"We hope that more mothers will learn to pass on the supplementary food to their chicks, so that when the fruit crop fails, they will have a back up," Ms Vercoe Scott said.

A seventh chick, which is currently under vet care at Wellington Zoo, was doing well and would join the chicks at the hand rearing facility once it was deemed fit to return, she said.

2011 chicks
Just 20 eggs were laid in 2011 and 5 proved to be infertile. 11 chicks hatched successfully