It took him two weeks to trap the old, bedraggled male, whom researchers named Jonathan Livingston Kakapo. Over the course of the next three years, Merton and a half dozen other volunteers combed ...

Meet the kakapo—a chunky, moss-green parrot that looks like it waddled out of a fantasy novel and forgot how to fly. This New Zealand native carries one of the bird world's most tragic and oddly ...