Since 1989, supplementary food, such as nuts and sweet potato, has been given to some individual kakapo from dispensers in their home ranges, resulting in a 15% increase in body weight for fed birds.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...

One kakapo unintentionally went viral when it got ... This ability helps them reach food high in the canopy. Kakapos are nocturnal birds who spend their days snoozing in shady forest hideouts ...

conservation personnel have to provide the kakapo with food). The birds didn’t breed in 2012, and no one was really expecting them to so soon after the transfer. As I finished working on my ...

The mathematical tool, called the geometric framework for nutrition, is being used to try and determine the best food for kakapo in years when rimu trees do not fruit. The tool compares - through ...

Dr Pamela von Hurst, from Massey's School of Food and Nutrition, has just had a paper published on the study linking vitamin D in rimu fruit with the endangered parrot's nutritional needs and ...

It’s a hard life, and the female kakapo aren’t going to make it any harder by bringing on chicks. It’s only when they get a specific burst of food that the females will be interested in mating.

Illustration by TH Worthy and P. Scofield Of the 350 parrot species alive today, the heaviest is the kakapo, a flightless bird also native to New Zealand. But the extinct parrot, dubbed Heracles ...

Last year, the kakapo, a heavy, flightless parrot that is ... But this year, an abundance of rimu seeds (the parrots' favorite food), the lack of predators on their island sanctuary, and the ...

as the food for each kakapo is weighed individually. Huge effort has gone into saving the kakapo (Image: Dick Veitch) "Each bird has different amounts depending on how much they eat and whether they ...