A Bird's Worst Friend
by Josh Badding
Douglas Adams stood on the top of a ridge in the Fiordland region of New Zealand listening for a deep call, a sort of wump to echo through the valleys. Adams and his team were standing at the last known Kakapo booming sight in mainland New Zealand.
Until recently, New Zealand consisted of almost nothing but birds as only birds and other flying animals could reach the isolated island. On New Zealand there were zero predators to be found. The birds no longer needed to fly away from predators; flying is simply an adaption that these animals had no use for. There was also a trade-off between flying and eating. It became increasingly common to find birds settling in on the ground simply so they could eat more and “go for a waddle afterwards.”
When the European settlers eventually colonized the islands and brought cats, dogs, stoats, possums, and other hungry carnivores, “the kiwis, the takahes, and the kakapos were suddenly waddling for their lives.” Stray and feral cats are perhaps the worst invasive predators in any ecosystem. It’s very unlikely that the Kakapo will ever be able to live on the mainland islands again.
All situations in which species are decimated are abhorrent. What makes the disappearance of the Kakapo even more distasteful is that this is not a situation in which we simply overhunted a species; we created an environment in which the species is unable to live in. We have made an organism defunct in its own ecosystem; we have tarnished an ecosystem, an entire ecosystem.
This situation is but a small part of a much larger picture. As a species ourselves we have destroyed the biosphere and all ecosystems within it. We can coexist with the natural world as we are a part of it. And it’s not too late to achieve this, the issue is that we will be living with the ecosystems that we created, and it’s unlikely that we can return nature to what it once was.
Many organizations in New Zealand are attempting to bring the Kakapo back from the brink of extinction, while their government has to deal with a plethora of cats. While at first the breeding programs were unsuccessful, the programs are starting to work now and more Kakapo can be found on these isolated islands. There is still no plan for the future as far as what they are going to do once there is a decent population; right now they’re just trying to keep the species alive. But hopefully someday you may be able to stand in a valley in New Zealand and enjoy the surreal beauty while the mountains vibrates with a deep booming sound from an overweight waddling parrot.
[Photo, Kakapo chick, by Department of Conservation licensed by CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]
by Josh Badding
Douglas Adams stood on the top of a ridge in the Fiordland region of New Zealand listening for a deep call, a sort of wump to echo through the valleys. Adams and his team were standing at the last known Kakapo booming sight in mainland New Zealand.
Until recently, New Zealand consisted of almost nothing but birds as only birds and other flying animals could reach the isolated island. On New Zealand there were zero predators to be found. The birds no longer needed to fly away from predators; flying is simply an adaption that these animals had no use for. There was also a trade-off between flying and eating. It became increasingly common to find birds settling in on the ground simply so they could eat more and “go for a waddle afterwards.”
When the European settlers eventually colonized the islands and brought cats, dogs, stoats, possums, and other hungry carnivores, “the kiwis, the takahes, and the kakapos were suddenly waddling for their lives.” Stray and feral cats are perhaps the worst invasive predators in any ecosystem. It’s very unlikely that the Kakapo will ever be able to live on the mainland islands again.
All situations in which species are decimated are abhorrent. What makes the disappearance of the Kakapo even more distasteful is that this is not a situation in which we simply overhunted a species; we created an environment in which the species is unable to live in. We have made an organism defunct in its own ecosystem; we have tarnished an ecosystem, an entire ecosystem.
This situation is but a small part of a much larger picture. As a species ourselves we have destroyed the biosphere and all ecosystems within it. We can coexist with the natural world as we are a part of it. And it’s not too late to achieve this, the issue is that we will be living with the ecosystems that we created, and it’s unlikely that we can return nature to what it once was.
Many organizations in New Zealand are attempting to bring the Kakapo back from the brink of extinction, while their government has to deal with a plethora of cats. While at first the breeding programs were unsuccessful, the programs are starting to work now and more Kakapo can be found on these isolated islands. There is still no plan for the future as far as what they are going to do once there is a decent population; right now they’re just trying to keep the species alive. But hopefully someday you may be able to stand in a valley in New Zealand and enjoy the surreal beauty while the mountains vibrates with a deep booming sound from an overweight waddling parrot.
[Photo, Kakapo chick, by Department of Conservation licensed by CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]