Holocene extinction may have put some pressure on other birds but at the time of early European contact (18th Century) and colonisation (19th Century) the bird life was prolific. With them, the Europeans brought ship rats, possums, cats and mustelids which decimated native bird life, some of which had adapted flightlessness and ground nesting habits and others had no defensive behavior as a result of having no extant endemic mammalian predators. The kakapo, the world's biggest parrot, which is flightless, now only exists in managed breeding sanctuaries. New Zealand's national emblem, the kiwi, is on the endangered bird list. There has been
Kakapo which Stephen Fry and Carwardine revisit the animals to see how they are getting on almost 20 years later, and in January 2009, they spent time filming the kakapo on Codfish Island. Footage of a kakapo named Sirocco attempting to mate with Carwardine's head was viewed by millions worldwide, leading to Sirocco becoming "spokes-bird" for New Zealand wildlife conservation in 2010. The kakapo was featured in the episode "Strange Islands" of the documentary series "South Pacific", originally aired on 13 June 2009, in the episode "Worlds Apart" of the series "The Living Planet", and in episode 3 of the BBC's