Kia ora koutou, Happy New Year to everyone out there and thank you for supporting the kakapo recovery project in 2009. We look forward to your continued support and interest in 2010 and welcome you to spread the story of the kakapo and the work of the Department of Conservation. Well there has been no chance of sunburn during this trip to Anchor Island. Zephyrus, the Greek god of the west wind, joined us to see in the New Year down on the bench overlooking Anchor Harbour. We attempted to sing louder than he could but even with his howling gusts I think he was the more tuneful at the time.
This morning is our last on Anchor as Tim, myself, and Laura our volunteer, prepare to depart. We had some feed out to finish before cleaning and organising the hut as Jonathan is arriving at 12 to return us to Te Anau and deliver the next staff.
The feed out run today was an invigorating trot out to the southwest lake in the pouring rain. "Straight up and down rain" in the meteorological terminology of Forrest Gump. Fiordland is a mysterious and beautiful place in this still, wet and dark weather that reduces the colours of the landscape to simple blacks and whites. The tracks were small running streams in places and the cloud hung heavily over the island not much above sea level. We didn't hold out much hope of the chopper getting over the mountains today but a late morning call from Jonathan on the radio confirmed that he thought it would lift enough early in the afternoon to give it a go later in the day.
We have had an interesting two weeks that involved track maintenance, health checks on 2009 chicks, captive care of Sass the kakapo and the odd celebration in between. Sass has now been released and feed stations set up for him have so far not been appreciated except by Rooster who didn't mind helping Sass eat his post-release supplements. We are continuing to track Sass's movements with radio monitoring and shift his hoppers in case he decides he wants to indulge.
There is unlikely to be any breeding this year, but despite that the males might boom for a couple of weeks and carry out some maintenance of their track and bowl systems and perhaps engage in some fighting to preserve their rights to the booming spots.
Pounamu is still up in Auckland where the vets inform us she is the noisiest kakapo they have ever had there. She begins with her vocals from the moment the key is put in the door in the morning. She is only regaining weight slowly but the infection is responding to the drugs so that is good news. She has a couple of small tears in her Cloaca that need to heal once her treatment finishes before she can come home.
As we leave today a man named Allan Munn, also known as "Nog" is coming onto the Island with ranger Chris Dyson and volunteer Edwina to help find a female kakapo called Hauturu, whose transmitter has failed in August. Nog is one of the original members of the search teams dedicated to finding a remnant population of kakapo in the late 70s and early 80s in a last ditched effort to save them from extinction. Nog has been deer hunting on nearby Resolution Island and is dropping over for a few days with his dog Chloe, currently one of only two kakapo dogs in the country, to help relocate Hauturu and put a new transmitter on her. We hope it all goes well. From the radio traffic it sounds like our ride is arriving soon. Farewell Anchor Island, until next time.
