The youngest kākāpō chick has passed 150 days old, bringing the number of living juveniles to 71 and the overall kākāpō population to 213, in episode 24 of the Kākāpō Files.
The kākāpō population has reached a new high of 213 birds, following the largest breeding season on record. This is a significant increase from the 147 birds that were alive at the beginning of the season.
The new total includes a record-breaking 71 juvenile birds.
Department of Conservation's Kākāpō Recovery Team scientist Dr Andrew Digby says: "there are probably more kākāpō alive today than at any time in the past 70 years."
Kākāpō Recovery manager Deidre Vercoe says the next challenge will be to find new predator-free homes for the giant endangered parrots, as the two main breeding islands are at capacity.
The 2018-2019 kākāpō breeding season has been one for the record books in many ways. It kicked off in December 2018 with the earliest mating on record, and by the time mating ended in April it was also the longest breeding season.
Breeding occurred on two of the three kākāpō islands - Whenua Hou / Codfish Island and Anchor Island, where every adult female except one bred.
Overall, 253 eggs were laid, although only 86 hatched, due to high levels of infertility and early embryo deaths.
Of those 86, 72 reached 150 days old, which is when they are considered to have graduated from being a chick to a juvenile. Stella-3-B was the last chick to reach the 150-day milestone on 17 September.
Juveniles will not be counted as adults until they reach breeding age, at five years old.
Number of aspergillosis deaths rises to 8
The current total of living juveniles is now 71, following the unexpected death last week of Margaret-Maree-2-B. A post-mortem showed he had died from aspergillosis, despite receiving an all-clear from the vets when an earlier CT scan showed no sign of the disease.
Kākāpō scientist Andrew Digby says they are investigating closely, to try and find out whether the medical check-up had missed a small infection or whether the juvenile contracted the deadly fungal disease after the check-up. He says the latter scenario would be very concerning, as all infections to date were associated with infected nests.
