Kakapo low. Supplementary feeding affects the sex ratio of kakapo offspring, and can be used to increase the number of female chicks by deliberately manipulating maternal condition. During the winter of 1981, only females lighter than were given supplementary feeding to avoid raising their body condition, and the sex ratio results in 1982 were close to parity, eliminating the male-biased sex ratios in the unrestricted feeding. Today commercial parrot food is supplied to all individuals of breeding age on Whenua Hou and Anchor. The amount eaten and individual weights are carefully monitored to ensure that optimum body condition is maintained. Kakapo
Kakapo of the birds had died and the fifth died after about four years. In the next 12 years, regular expeditions found few signs of the kakapo, indicating that numbers were continuing to decline. Only one bird was captured in 1967; it died the following year. By the early 1970s, it was uncertain whether the kakapo was still an extant species. At the end of 1974, scientists located several more male kakapo and made the first scientific observations of kakapo booming. These observations led Don Merton to speculate for the first time that the kakapo had a lek breeding system. From