A large native parrot that disappeared from Dunedin around 150 years ago is turning up in backyards, cemeteries and suburban trees across the city, in what conservationists are calling one of the South Island’s quiet wildlife success stories.
The kākā, a heavy, russet-bodied forest parrot known for its raucous calls and acrobatic flying, was reintroduced to the Orokonui Ecosanctuary north of Dunedin in 2008. Nearly two decades later the birds have multiplied to the point that they are spilling out over the predator fence and making homes of their own well beyond the sanctuary’s boundaries.
Orokonui operations manager Elton Smith told the Otago Daily Times that the pace of growth had been striking. Twenty-two wild-born kākā were banded at the sanctuary this season alone. By comparison, it took staff 16 years, from 2008 to 2024, to band the first 100 wild-born birds. In the two seasons since, they have banded close to 40 more.
“It’s been an incredibly rewarding journey to this point,” Smith said. “Even though we now see kākā every day, you still stop in your tracks when a large flock flies over the valley.”
Recent surveys inside the fenced sanctuary recorded 65 individual sightings, a record for Orokonui. But the numbers that have caught residents’ attention are the ones showing up in town. A single kākā has been a fixture around the Dunedin Southern Cemetery since March last year. Others have been logged as semi-resident in Brighton, Waverley, The Cove, Mosgiel and North East Valley, and birds have been spotted in the central city, Warrington, Waitati and near Kensington Oval.
Smith said the spread was a sign the reintroduction had worked, not a problem to be managed. Kākā can cover up to 20 kilometres in a day, and the dispersal into Dunedin’s suburbs was simply what a healthy, growing population does once its home patch fills up.
“At Orokonui, we’re probably reaching our capacity in terms of kākā,” he told the ODT. “So the ones we do have are now establishing themselves outside the sanctuary — they’re getting around, looking for new territory.”
That, he said, was good news and a sign the population was increasing.
For older Dunedin residents, the change is hard to overstate. Kākā were once common across the lower South Island, but a combination of forest clearance and introduced predators, particularly stoats, rats and possums, stripped them out of the mainland through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For roughly a century and a half, the only way most people in the city would see one was in a photograph or behind wire at a zoo. Now they are flying over the same streets, suburbs and reserves where they were wiped out.
The bird’s recovery sits on top of years of unglamorous work. Orokonui is ringed by a predator-proof fence and kept clear of the introduced mammals that eat eggs, chicks and nesting females. Beyond the fence, the survival of the kākā now spreading through Dunedin depends heavily on what happens in ordinary backyards. Community trapping groups across the city have been knocking back rat and stoat numbers for years, and that buffer is part of why birds leaving the sanctuary have any chance of breeding successfully in the wild.
Sanctuary staff are urging residents who are delighted to host a kākā to resist the temptation to feed them. It is a message conservation groups around the country repeat often, because the instinct to put out food is so strong. The risk is that the wrong food does real harm. Sugar water, a common offering, can trigger bacterial infections, while bread and other human foods leave the birds malnourished and can spread disease when many gather at the same feeder. Feeding can also make kākā bolder and more destructive around houses, which sours the goodwill the birds depend on.
The city carries other hazards for a bird built for the forest canopy. Windows are a frequent danger, with kākā misjudging reflections and flying into glass. Pet cats and dogs are a threat, especially to young birds still finding their feet, and curious parrots will chew on whatever they find, including objects that can injure them. Orokonui’s advice to residents is to plant native trees that provide natural food and shelter, trap predators in their own gardens, and keep cats and dogs away from bush areas during the warmer months when kākā are nesting.
The kākā’s comeback is part of a broader pattern around fenced sanctuaries in New Zealand, where decades of predator control eventually reach a tipping point and birds begin recolonising surrounding land on their own terms. Wellington’s Zealandia produced a similar effect, seeding the capital’s suburbs with kākā, tūī and kākāriki, and Orokonui now appears to be doing the same for Dunedin. The difference this time is the speed. After 16 years of slow, patient gains, the last two seasons have seen the population accelerate sharply, suggesting the birds have crossed the threshold from a managed reintroduction into a self-sustaining wild population.
For a species that vanished from the region before most of the city’s streets existed, that is no small thing. The challenge now shifts from getting kākā back to keeping them safe once they arrive, and a good deal of that responsibility falls to the residents who find a forest parrot sizing up the trees in their own garden.
Have you spotted a kākā in your part of Dunedin, or watched native birds return to your neighbourhood? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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