Pureora to Pirongia kōkako translocation

*19 January 2018* 16 kokako have been re-sighted. Not bad at all!

*4 October 2017*  20 kokako were caught at Waipapa and released safely at Mt Pirongia. This is the first attempt at reestablishing a population on the maunga since the last few old birds were lifted out in the 1990s. 

*20 June 2017* The Waikato Times covers the release of the first pair of kokako at Pirongia, handsome boy Rongomau (below) and Rangimarie: https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/93882074/the-first-kokako-have-returned-to-mount-pirongia

Mauritius

Home from fulfilling one of my lifelong dreams (since reading Gerald Durrell's Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons anyway). Dave and I spent five weeks volunteering for the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, based at Ferney field station; the site of an ambitious reintroduction project involving Echo Parakeets, Pink Pigeons, Mauritian Cuckoo-shrikes and Mauritian Paradise Flycatchers. Our main job was to catch and translocate 14 flycatchers to Ferney from National Park and to monitor their movements post release, using radio telemetry. For a tiny non-migratory bird, they can fly. One male gapped it 25 kilometres back to where he was caught, within days. Thankfully the rest seem to have settled down.

Echo parakeets tasting freedom.

Our colleague Veronique Couttee extracting a female Mauritian Paradise Flycatcher from a mistnet.

Te Kuiti and Mapara to Auckland kōkako translocation