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Duncan Geere

Duncan Geere

News Editor,

Richard Henry, a key member of a species of fat, flightless birds called kakapo, has passed away at the ripe old age of 80. He had had been credited with a significant contribution towards saving the entire species, after it was nearly made extinct by invading stoats, rats and cats.

The kakapo is a member of the parrot family, and is native to New Zealand. It's unique among parrots in that it's flightless, nocturnal, and herbivorous. It's also the heaviest member of the parrot family, leading it to be described memorably as the "world's largest, fattest and least-able-to-fly parrot" by Douglas Adams when he visited a population of kakapo for a BBC Radio 4 documentary.

The kakapo is thought to be one of the world's longest-living birds, which caused problems when the islands it lives on were colonised by Polynesians and Europeans. The population of the birds crashed swiftly, and they were almost wiped out. Ad-hoc conservation of the species began in 1890 by the original Richard Henry, but it wasn't until a formally-defined Kakapo Recovery Plan was begun in 1989 that the species' numbers began to recover.

Richard Henry was discovered in 1975, when it was thought that the kakapo may have already become extinct, and was swiftly moved to Maud Island, which only conservationists and scientists are permitted to access. When a group of other kakapo, including females, were discovered on Stewart Island in 1977, they were also moved to Maud Island, and Richard Henry offered some crucial biodiversity to the small population.

"Richard Henry was a living link to the early days of kakapo recovery, and perhaps even to a time before stoats when kakapo could boom unmolested in Fiordland," said Ron Moorhourse, the head of New Zealand's kakapo protection programme.

Richard Henry's death marks the end of an era in kakapo conservation, and also represents the first time that a kakapo has been known to have died of natural causes. His legacy remains, however. During the 2008-09 breeding season, the numbers of Kakapo rose above 100 for the first time since monitoring began, and by February 2010 were at 122. Each one has a name.


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