22/05/2026
Hand-rearing a just-hatched kākāpō chick? That’s some !
In late March, Jasmine spent two weeks on Pukenui/Anchor Island, helping our friends and colleagues at the Department of Conservation of Kākāpō Recovery with this busy breeding season!
This is Jasmine's ninth year of helping to care for these charismatic mossy-green parrots. This year her mahi involved working alongside Kākāpō Recovery rangers and experts to check kākāpō nests, check the health of chicks, help to transfer birds to nests if required, and hand-rear chicks at the DOC hut.
One such chick, Pākiki-A-3 was evacuated from their nest as an egg, as Pākiki (a new mum that hatched in 2022) showed signs of abandoning it. If eggs are not incubated consistently by their kākāpō mothers, they will lose heat quickly and could die. Fortunately, the team monitor eggs for situations like this, and a DOC ranger was able to take it back to the hut for incubating.
The egg was cared for over two days in one of several temperature-controlled incubators. When Jasmine checked just before midnight on the 22 March, she saw it was close to hatching and set an alarm for 3am to monitor its progress. When she woke, she could see that the chick had broken through more of its shell and was progressing well, so she set another alarm. This time when she woke up – the chick had successfully hatched!
Throughout this day and the next, the chick was hand-reared by Jasmine and Zoo vet James. On the evening of the second day, Jasmine carried the chick in a portable, padded box, hiking out just over an hour to place it in kākāpō Wendy’s nest. At 5am when Wendy had left the nest to forage, Jasmine was able to see that the chick was accepted and cared for by this kākāpō mum.
We’re pleased to say the chick has done well under Wendy’s care and now weighs over 2kgs!
Click the link in our comments to read more about Jasmine’s mahi on Pukenui.
