March 4, 2026
3 min read
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Love Island: Rare berry bonanza spurs Kākāpō baby boom
A massive bloom of rimu berries fueled a mating surge among the world’s heaviest (and strangest) parrots
Kākāpō rely primarily on rimu berries to reproduce—and this year’s huge crop set the mood.
The biggest berry bloom in New Zealand’s forests in decades has set off a mating frenzy among the critically endangered Kākāpō, the world’s beefiest parrot.
With the face of a Muppet and the physique of a Furby, the Kākāpō is an all-around preposterous creature. It’s nocturnal, lime green and, as science-fiction writer Douglas Adams wrote, “flies like a brick.” The animals produce a strong, fruity musk, can weigh as much as a house cat and can potentially live for 90 years or more.
At the beginning of 2026 only 236 Kākāpōs remain in the world, and to the chagrin of their human conservation team, the birds primarily rely on a single fruit to set the mood for love. That means the animals mate prolifically only when the rimu tree—a towering conifer that can live for a millennium—produces a bumper crop of bright red berries, which happens every two to four years.
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During the berry-backed courtship rituals, male Kākāpōs used their stumpy little feet to scrape and stomp out earthen amphitheaters called “booming bowls,” which amplify their courtship song—a resonant, low-pitched call that carries for miles. “Rather than hearing it, you kind of feel it in the chest,” says Andrew Digby, science adviser for the Kākāpō team at the New Zealand Department of Conservation.
Kākāpō on her nest.
Andrew Digby/New Zealand Department of Conservation
Nearly all female Kākāpōs of reproductive age have bred this year, Digby says, producing an impressive 240 eggs and counting. About half of the eggs will be fertile. Fewer will hatch, and fewer still will survive long enough to fledge. As of March 3, scientists have tallied 26 living chicks.
These population gains wouldn’t have been possible without a handful of Kākāpō “superbreeders,” including Blades, a Kākāpō Don Juan of unknown age who, after fathering 22 chicks since 1982, has been banished to “Bachelor Island” for fears that he’ll flood the gene pool. “He was a victim of his own success,” Digby says. “He was too popular.”
A newborn chick being weighed.
Lydia Uddstrom/New Zealand Department of Conservation
Once the fortunate eggs hatch, the females will rear their chicks alone. Every night Kākāpō moms use beak and talon to climb up 100 feet to the rimu tree canopies to harvest berries—about a pound’s worth per chick each day. Some females have reproduced for more than 40 years, creating strong “dynasties,” he says. One Kākāpō matriarch named Nora has participated in 13 breeding cycles since 1981 and stands to become both a mom and a great-great-grandmother this season. This year you can watch Kākāpō supermom Rakiura on a nest cam as she hatches and rears two chicks, fending off nest intruders that include shorebirds and bats. Although Rakiura is only 24 years old, she has successfully raised nine of her own chicks and fostered many more for less experienced females. Right now the chicks look like dandelion puffs, but within a few weeks, they’ll become “weird little dinosaurs with these huge, oversized feet,” Digby says.
The team hopes enough chicks will survive this year to bring the world Kākāpō population to 300—a major milestone for a species that was teetering with just 51 individuals in 1995. The flightless birds were easy pickings for invasive predators, including house cats, dogs and weasel-like stoats—the fruity eau de Kākāpō is pungent enough that even humans can track them by scent. The Kākāpōs found sanctuary on three predator-free islands belonging to the Ngāi Tahu, whose tribespeople act as kaitiaki, or caretakers, of the birds. “It’s a taonga species, a treasure to us,” says Tāne Davis, who has been the Ngāi Tahu’s representative in Kākāpō conservation for 20 years.
One-day-old Kākāpō chick during a health check.
Lydia Uddstrom/New Zealand Department of Conservation
The Kākāpōs have outgrown these tiny refuges, and the pressure is on to “restore the mauri, or life force, of the habitat” on larger islands by removing the invasive predators there, Davis says.
The 2026 breeding cycle represents a new era for Kākāpōs, Davis and Digby agree. At the Ngāi Tahu’s request, some of the chicks born this year won’t be named. “It’s about letting them have their lives back in the wild,” Davis says.
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