(no subject)

[vyvyanx]

I have become fascinated with these unfortunate creatures:
http://www.kakaporecovery.org.nz/

Their mini-biographies are better than soap opera:
http://www.kakaporecovery.org.nz/kakapo/whakapapa.html

I remember them from Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See, and perhaps from some BBC wildlife documentary years ago. I am glad they are still alive. I am also struck to realise that one of the team working with them contributed to the incredibly implausible rescue of the black robin (whose plight I recall being described on John Craven's Newsround in the early 80s):
http://www.nzes.org.nz/nzje/free_issues/NZJEcol16_2_65.pdf

Comments

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

Hope you're feeling better now? xxx

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Much better thanks! The new antibiotics didn't cause an allergic reaction, and they worked effectively on my original illness, so I seem back to normal now :-) Sorry we couldn't come to your party, but I gather it went very well. Hope to see you soon!

[nmg.livejournal.com]

But is a population of 86 still sustainable?

I have to admit to feeling sorry for them, although they do come across as being a bit hapless in the face of alien predators: they can't fly, they smell strongly of honey, and their response to predators is to stand still. Not exactly survival traits.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

86 is an improvement on 51, which was the point their population had slumped to in the mid-90s, when they began trying out more radical approaches to improve their survival chances. They're probably not at a sustainable level yet (and are still classed as critically endangered) but the team working with them are hoping for steady increases in numbers up to the point where they can leave an unmanaged population safely on an island, and they will self-sustain. In terms of genetic diversity, they apparently have a fair number of breeding birds which are all from one small island, and hence very genetically close, but also one breeding male from a different original location, who is genetically quite distinct (and even has a different 'dialect' of mating call), and they're hoping his contribution will increase the diversity within the kakapo gene pool.

I agree they sound very poorly suited to survival in the environment as it stands, but their characteristics were entirely adequate to ensure survival before humans arrived - especially Europeans (both in terms of direct predation and due to the arrival of cats, rats and stoats with humans) - the kakapo originally filled both main islands of New Zealand.

[scy11a.livejournal.com]

The book of Last Chance to See was even more saddening, but there are many more species being gently coaxed back from the brink. If you ever get the chance to visit the Jersey Zoo then do so. It was founded by Gerald Durrell (My Family and Other Animals) to try to rescue species from extinction and the tour starts with a short film about the Florida Sparrow. This was a small non-descript bird which nobody really took any notice of and is subsequnetly now extinct. Many of the zoo enclosures also hold a rather dull small brown duck, and some have a sign saying:

You may have wondered why many enclosures have a boring small brown duck in them. These are in fact the rare Blue-winged teal(?) and there are only a handful left in the wild, so our collection comprises half the world population of these wildfowl

Terribly sad.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

I've been to Jersey once, but didn't realise the zoo was so significant. If I ever have the chance to go back, I'll certainly visit it.

An alarming figure I came across on one of the extinction sites I was looking at last night was that the rate of species extinction over the last 50 years is of the order of 1000 times greater than the "normal" background extinction rate. That's us, that is.

[scy11a.livejournal.com]

It's even more frightening in the context of the disdain that we hold the Victorians in for their obliteration of species. In the UK, one species they virtually eradicated is only just starting to recover through selective reintroductions - the magnificent Red Kite.

However, particularly inthe case of the seas and the rain forests, scientists are warning that we risk forcing species to extinction that we haven't even had the chance to discover yet - I remember a feature on the Giant Squid; a trawler hauled in one over 6m long but conservationists fear it is one of the last : (