Kākāpōsting. You know, like , party parrot stonks are up!!!

World's funniest parrot whose breeding season only comes around once every four years-ish has a bunch of chicks. This rocks bc kākāpō genetics and egg viability are poor due to inbreeding depression. It's possible not every chick will make it but iirc survivability of successfully birthed chicks is pretty good. The kākāpō recovery program seems to be doing really well, and this is how I found out Andrew Digby has a bsky account! I wondered what was up when the twitter stooped being updated.

Anyway, there's a paragraph in this NBC article:

Once widespread across New Zealand, kakapo numbers plummeted after human arrival due to hunting, predators and habitat loss. Conservation efforts began in 1894, but the species nearly went extinct by the mid‑1900s.

It's worthy to note that while Polynesian arrival on Aotearoa did have a negative impact on kākāpō populations, it was European settlement that kicked off the population decline leading to the remaining 51 birds being removed from their habitats for the Recovery Program in the 90s. NBC News. Also mainstream outlets say BACK FROM THE BRINK every time an endangered bird has a good breeding season, and the kākāpō's last two or three have been, while not this productive, pretty good.

EDIT: The Digby twitter made this post: https://bsky.app/profile/digs.bsky.social/post/3mufrrsfhq22r

325 birds, there were 237 before breeding season so looks like they lost a few, but not many. 91 birds is a bumper crop.

EDIT2: here's a much better article from the gov't itself: https://www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-releases/2026-media-releases/kakapo-population-reaches-new-milestone/

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