Kakapo "New Zealand Earth's Mythical Islands". Kakapo The kakapo (Māori: kākāpō) or "night parrot", also called owl parrot ("Strigops habroptilus"), is a species of large, flightless, nocturnal, ground-dwelling parrot of the super-family Strigopoidea, endemic to New Zealand. It has finely blotched yellow-green plumage, a distinct facial disc, a large grey beak, short legs, large feet, and relatively short wings and tail. A combination of traits make it unique among its kind; it is the world's only flightless parrot, the heaviest parrot, nocturnal, herbivorous, visibly sexually dimorphic in body size, has a low basal metabolic rate and no male parental care, and
Kakapo established in 1995. The New Zealand Department of Conservation replaced the Wildlife Service for this task. The first action of the plan was to relocate all the remaining kakapo to suitable islands for them to breed. None of the New Zealand islands were ideal to establish kakapo without rehabilitation by extensive re-vegetation and the eradication of introduced mammalian predators and competitors. Four islands were finally chosen: Maud, Hauturu/Little Barrier, Codfish and Mana. Sixty-five kakapo (43 males, 22 females) were successfully transferred onto the four islands in five translocations. Some islands had to be rehabilitated several times when feral cats, stoats