A sirocco is a type of hot desert wind. It's also the world's most famous kakapo. This week Sirocco the kakapo was visiting Wellington and we went to see him at Zealandia.
I have been quietly fascinated by kakapo for a couple of years. They are what's known as a zombie species - i.e. they should be extinct, but due to human intervention, they are clinging on to existence. Ironically it was humans who caused them to verge on extinction in the first place through their introduction of predators which love to eat flightless birds.
Kakapo are the heaviest parrots in the world, up to 4kg (obviously they can't fly) and they are solitary birds. When predators arrived they quickly killed off the females in the population when they were sitting on nests, so by the 70s the only known individuals were males - the species was functionally extinct. Luckily a population with females in was discovered on Stewart Island, and the whole population was translocated to predator-free islands where they are now breeding, slowly. From a low point of 51 individuals the population is now up to 129, but they are still in a precarious position and dependent on humans for the foreseeable future.
It was great to see Sirocco (parrots are very endearing birds) and Zealandia did a really good job with the whole experience, but it does make you wonder whether it's all worth it. Why do we strive to save species like Kakapo? Certainly we enjoyed ourselves (for $40), but is the money invested in saving this one, defenceless species really worth it? What does biodiversity really add to the world? Darwin knew that only the fittest survive, and a counter point to NZ's ecological mania is to just accept that kakapo did not adapt, and they cannot survive.
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