🦜 Conservation Week – Day Four 🦜 Today we’re celebrating the kākāriki — one of New Zealand’s most colourful and charismatic taonga species. With their bright green feathers and cheeky personalities, these parakeets are a favourite with visitors to the Otorohanga Kiwi House. 💚✨ Sadly, kākāriki populations have declined in the wild due to habitat loss and introduced predators. That’s why our work, alongside our conservation partners, is so important — providing safe care, education, and advocac

Most kākāriki are known for eating seeds, fruits, and invertebrates, but the Antipodes Island kākāriki has evolved a very different way of surviving in the subantarctic. On the remote Antipodes Islands, food can be scarce, and these parakeets have adapted by scavenging seabird carcasses and eggs. But researchers have also documented something even more unexpected: Antipodes kākāriki entering grey-backed storm petrel burrows and killing the birds before feeding on them. It’s not their only food s