Political Rifts and Conservation Consequences: How Departmental Politics Undermined Kakapo Recovery Efforts in the 1970s and 1980s

Fiordland National Park was administered by the Lands and Survey Department

The modern kākāpō story is one of success against all odds. That 244 kākāpō exist today, when in the 1970s just a handful were known to survive, is nothing short of a miracle. It is a modern conservation success story, heralded around the world as a blueprint for saving species.

Yet, lost in that story is how close we came to losing the kākāpō due to political infighting between government departments—and how the impacts of that (through deep inbreeding in the modern kākāpō population) are still felt today.

Heartbreakingly, this is a story repeated time and time again throughout New Zealand’s conservation history. So, please join me as we take a deep dive into how political infighting nearly cost us the kākāpō.

 Evolution of Kakapo Conservation Departments in the 1970s and 1980s

In the 1970s and 1980s, two parties held considerable sway over Kakapo recovery efforts. The first was the Wildlife Division and second was the National Parks Authority, under which operated the Fiordland National Park Board. 

The role of the Wildlife Division (later Wildlife Service) was to administer and manage operations of this work across New Zealand relating to our wildlife, while the National Park Authority’s role was to handle policy, park management, and administer the national parks. The Wildlife Division operated under the Department of Internal Affairs, while the National Park Authority operated under the Lands and Survey Department. Both operated until the creation of the Department of Conservation in 1987. Two different departments, one tasked with managing wildlife and the other tasked with managing the national parks they lived in. 

Both departments were under considerable pressure from their communities for different reasons. The National Parks Authority largely was focused on managing the stakeholders and users of National Parks, while the Wildlife Division was largely focused on determining which of the multitude of vanishing species they could save given the limited resources available to them.

To say the responsibilities they had overlapped was an understatement. Yet the way they prioritised these responsibilities varied deeply between the two departments.

The National Park Authority and the Fiordland National Park Board had put considerable funds toward the management of Chamois and Deer in the Park at the expense (some felt) of controlling stoats. They had also funded considerable research on native species which, while useful, really only seemed to be highlighting their decline. Results had been poor, particularly with Kakapo, which had vanished over the previous fifteen years from most of the Milford Catchment and neighbouring Poison Bay.

The authority also had to closely manage relationships with deer stalkers who were still upset at the public closure of the Murchison Mountains and loss of access to the region for the preservation of Takahe. Consequently, information about the location of other critically endangered species was not forthcoming from national park users who were afraid their favourite recreation areas would be closed down. The Parks Authority was both sensitive to this, and reluctant to share information with the Wildlife Division for fear of alienating stakeholders. 

The Wildlife service, on the other hand, was suffering deeply from underfunding; they relied heavily upon volunteers to achieve results. None of their keystone projects were seeing success and they were worried about potentially losing the limited funding they did have. 

A Kakapo captive breeding programme the decade prior had failed, and the six Kakapo had all died. Takahe were in rapid decline. The Orange-fronted Parakeet, Laughing Owl, Huia, South island Kokako, and Bush Wren were all recently feared extinct. They had a long list of species in decline, none of which they had the resources to save. They were frustrated by what they viewed as poor prioritisation and management of very limited resources by the Parks Authority. They felt they needed a public conservation win if more funding was to be secured.

Fiordland National Park was home to a declining Kakapo Population

Interdepartmental Pressures and Priorities in Kakapo Conservation

These two competing agendas led to a series of decisions by the Wildlife Division that, while making sense to them, alienated the relationship with the Parks authority. The Parks Authority maintained that the leading contribution to the decline of Kakapo was, at least in part, due to Chamois, which they were focusing heavily on controlling. The decision of the Wildlife service to override them and focus on translocating Kakapo to offshore islands seems to have caused friction, though not so much by the decision to shift Kakapo but by the underlying implication that the Authority had not focused its resources in the right direction.

At this stage the two departments still worked reasonably well together. The Fauna Advisory Committee had recommended the initial transfer. The botany division had identified Maud as having most of the plant species necessary to feed Kakapo, and the ministry of works had been involved in the restoration of the island. The Crown had purchased the entirety of the island in 1975, and best of all, it was rat-free. The fact that it had been fully prepared for them at minimal cost by volunteers, charitable organisations, and other departments seems to have been a considerable draw card to a department struggling with funding.

Yet Maud suffered from droughts, had just sixteen hectares of native bush remaining, and was within swimming distance of stoats from the mainland. The Parks Authority was one of several departments that questioned if the island was suitable for Kakapo and if they could thrive or even breed on the island. Yet they were overruled by the Wildlife Division, who pushed ahead to translocate birds despite livestock remaining on the island.

Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds which had been heavily modified for farming.

Controversial Decision-Making in Kakapo Translocation 

Desperate for results themselves, the Wildlife Service found only a handful of Kakapo in their search of Milford Sound in Fiordland in the 1974/5 period. The former stronghold of the Tutoko contained only a single bird who vanished in 1975. Birds were present but elusive in Sinbad Gully. Two birds were captured in the Esperance Valley, one was smaller than the other, and despite releasing an initial report announcing both birds were male, the Wildlife service, seemingly under pressure for results, cautiously dubbed the smaller one a female.

A search of the Gulliver found evidence of three birds, including two that occupied territories without track and bowl systems. They captured a male dubbed Richard Henry but couldn’t catch the others over the rough terrain. The head of the programme, Don Merton announced in a press release announced he was confident the two remaining birds were female. However after a search the following November found no evidence the birds remained, the Wildlife Service never again spoke of these birds and began to instead suggest that no females remained in Fiordland. An odd stance given that in 1976 and 1977 they still had a bird that they claimed was a female on Maud!

The Wildlife Division and particularly Don Merton seems to have taken the line that the public needed to be involved if saving the Kakapo was to happen. In a series of interviews, Don Merton claimed that fewer than twenty birds remained in Fiordland, that it seemed unlikely any were females, and that only rapid action could save the Kakapo. It’s an odd stance - one that’s understandable given the extreme risk of extinction that Kakapo face. Yet it also wasn’t entirely truthful. Don himself was aware that in the past fifteen years Kakapo had been reported or sighted in three North Island locations and widely across the West Coast, Paparoas, Heaphy Track, Nancy Sound, and Poison Bay.

It’s interesting to note that Milford Sound had few deer at this stage, and the implications of finding Kakapo elsewhere in Fiordland or New Zealand were far more politically fraught and financially expensive than focusing on Milford Sound for the Wildlife Service. Had they focused on any other region of New Zealand it would have caused significant friction with the Park Authority and their stakeholders the outdoors community. By focusing on Milford Sound it meant that the only remaining population of Kakapo was nominally under their care, not that of the National Parks Authority. A key distinction given the tensions beginning to simmer between departments.

From a messaging perspective, given the lack of resources (the Wildlife Service was relying on volunteers and a gift of free helicopter hours from Alpine Helicopters), this made sense. The Wildlife needed the public to get behind saving the Kakapo, and focusing on their imminent demise was probably the right move.

What this did, however, was further strain the relationship between departments. Previously the area south of Milford sound had been viewed as the best Kakapo country, but this area was where the only major heard of Wapiti or Elk were found in New Zealand and was a key area for the Parks Authority's stakeholders.

This was both convenient, but also an embarrassment for the Parks Authority. A few years prior they'd billed 'the Poison Bay area (south of Milford Sound) as the ‘only remaining area a Kakapo population existed in’. They’d then been savaged in the papers in 1972 after it emerged they’d done little to protect Kakapo in Poison Bay which had 'vanished' according to a Wildlife Division survey around that period. (It's important to note that members of this survey I've interviewed, admit they spent most of the trip in their tents due to rain and spent little time conducting fieldwork).

It was also on their watch the population had crashed from an estimated 100 - 200 in Milford Sound in 1960 to just a couple of dozen in the late 1970s. In the eyes of the Parks Authority, the situation was an embarrassment that the Wildlife Division seemed to be exploiting for their own ends.

It seems likely they knew at least anecdotally that Kakapo existed elsewhere in Fiordland. Even members of the Wildlife Service expeditions I’ve spoken to privately acknowledge that there was more prime Kakapo country elsewhere. But to find and identify these Kakapo might well have alienated deerstalkers who were afraid of having more of the national park closed off to them. Milford Sound had few deer in the 1970s and therefore wasn’t a haven for hunters, making it politically a smart decision to focus Kakapo research on.

Only a handful of Kakapo remained in Milford Sound. Sinbad Gully is pictured in the centre. 

Media Scandal and Setbacks: The Dog Incident on Maud Island

Maud island, however, proved to be a political landmine for the Wildlife Service. The Wildlife officer present had been explicitly told he was not allowed to keep his pet dog on the island. Yet under staffing pressure internally, senior members of the department had quietly made the decision to relax these rules. They began to allow staff to keep dogs, under the provision they were tied up at all times. The dog was owned by a trainee officer, and permission had been given privately by a senior member of the department.

The dog not only killed the only ‘female’ Kakapo in existence, but also dropped the corpse at the feet of a visiting ranger from the Lands and Survey Department who oversaw the National Parks Authority. The Commissioner of the crown lands in Marlborough stepped in, demanding a full explanation - likely at the behest of the Parks Authority who were furious. The ensuing media scandal uncovered a widespread practice of rangers keeping pet dogs in sensitive areas, with the full knowledge of senior department officials. Perhaps the only saving grace was that Kakapo ended up being a male - though this in itself was embarrassing for the Wildlife Service who had ignored evidence suggesting it was a male in the first place.

The scandal played right into the hands of the Parks Authority, and particularly the Fiordland National Park Board. Ignored when it came to their research, and now with clear evidence of mismanagement by the Wildlife Service, they were one of a number of groups that pushed for dogs to be entirely banned when working with Kakapo. This was despite clear evidence that the best practice to locate Kakapo was a muzzled dog. This effectively ended chances of finding Kakapo outside of breeding seasons when males 'boomed' and ended chances of finding any remaining females that existed in Fiordland.

It’s unclear how much this played into the decision to focus further south on Kakapo which had recently been rediscovered on Stewart island. But the focus shifted there, where females were more likely to be found despite the limitations imposed on the Wildlife Service. One wonders if not having to work directly with the Fiordland Parks Board also played a part in the allocation of resources.

A Rangers pet dog killed one of a handful of remaining Fiordland Kakapo. 

Strategic Decisions and Friction: Translocating Kakapo to Maud and Little Barrier Islands.

Eventually, two more Fiordland birds were shifted to Maud along with several Stewart Island Birds. By then, a second Fiordland male, a bird named Jonathan had vanished too The cause has always been attributed to old age, or inability to adapt. Yet three other birds that would vanish or die in quick succession on Maud for the same reasons. Yet more insidious was the discovery of stoats on the island. Another scandal for the Wildlife Service that had both bet it all and advertised very publicly that Maud was a better solution than other southern islands.

A new Stewart Island female named Dianna, likely did die of translocation stress. However shortly afterwards Hugo and Mirkwood the sole remaining Fiordland birds from Poseidon Valley and Sinbad Gully also vanished. The Wildlife Service has always listed them as having failed to adapt to the island. Yet in an interview in 2017, Rhys Buckingham who discovered one of the birds, described him as being the largest he’d ever encountered suggesting a picture of health. Furthermore, Rhys explicitly stated that invading stoats killed both Fiordland males not translocation.

If true this was an absolute embarrassment for the Wildlife Service. The only evidence of females they’d found in Fiordland was in a location they hadn’t properly followed up until birds had been lost. Their own incompetence had killed one bird, another had vanished, and stoats had killed two more. Not only that but their focus on Stewart Island over Fiordland meant that just six birds were known to remain in the park post 1981. Even once females were introduced to Maud in 1981 breeding didn’t happen, and the entire site became unsuitable because stoats had invaded. An issue that had been a point of contention with the Parks Authority in the first place. The Lands and Survey Department stepped in and pushed for the immediate transfer of all birds off the island in 1985.

Yet the Wildlife Service doubled down on the  same decision making that had led to Maud being such a disaster. They selected a new location in Little Barrier island on the North Island. It had been part of a failed Kakapo translocation attempt eighty years prior, suffered from droughts, and didn’t contain the same vegetation as Fiordland or Maud. 

Even more baffling was that Whenua Hou / Codfish island was located right next to Stewart island. Possums and Rats were present on the island, but Rats were also present on Little Barrier. Which Kakapo had proven they could coexist alongside. Despite all of this, nearly twenty Stewart Island birds and the sole remaining Fiordland bird were shifted to Little Barrier between 1982 - 1985.

One common theme was the low cost associated with each decision. Little Barrier much like Maud was a resource that was available at low cost. Cat Control work had recently been completed and it would be a major political win for the Department to have cleared an island of cats and finally see Kakapo breed.

Little Barrier was an expensive failure. Over forty years on and off, Kakapo never once raised chicks without assistance. More birds died on the site than were raised, and many birds never gained breeding condition on the island. The most notable being Flossie, a female who was present from 1981 - 1996 and again from 2012 - 2023. She never once bred on Little Barrier and yet once moved south in 1997 was at least capable of breeding while briefly being kept on Maud (becoming the only female to ever do so). Once shifted South again, she produced in total twelve chicks more than any other recorded female Kakapo.

North Island environments were vastly different from Fiordland

Legacy of Mismanagement: Impact on Kakapo Population

By the mid-1980s, the Wildlife Service was pushing for the remaining Fiordland Birds to be removed to offshore islands. But they were working with a frustrated Fiordland National Park Board who was fed up with their management of Kakapo. From the Parks Authority perspective, under the management of the Wildlife Service, the majority of birds they handled from Fiordland had died unnecessary deaths. The Stewart Island population had been devastated by cats. Two translocation efforts had produced no results, and their own advice for the southern islands to be prioritised, was only being heeded nearly a decade after thery began lobbying for it.

The Fiordland National Park Board had little to no confidence in the Wildlife Service and given that the Kakapo seemed doomed to extinction, blocked the transfer of the remaining six or so known Fiordland Males. It seems they felt it would be better if they died out in peace than be disturbed by another government department. So translocations were delayed or blocked - though extensively talked about in the media.

It wasn't until the creation of the Department of Conservation in 1987 that things began to change as the responsibilities of both departments were finally merged together. Heartbreakingly, the deadlock wasn't resolved until after the booming season of 1987 in Fiordland. It was the last time Fiordland males were heard booming in numbers. By the time they were approved after the booming season of 1987, no birds could be located. Evidence of Kakapo continued in known sites for a few more years, but the resources were not available to follow them up. New sightings were limited, and when a request was put through for information to the Government two years ago, many files seemed to either be missing or not shared between government departments. It's interesting to note that the Department of Conservation today still seems to lack access to the original Lands and Survey Department Files on Kakapo - something which seems to hamper much of the reporting we have today on the history of the Kakapo across New Zealand.

Fiordland Kakapo seems to have been the victim of a poor relationship between two competing departments, both in need of the political wins necessary for their needs, and neither willing to listen to the very valid concerns the other had. Better collaboration probably could have resolved a lot of these issues. The Parks Authority was rightly concerned about shifting Kakapo to a modified habitat, while the Wildlife Service was right that inaction was not the correct decision.

Kakapo are deeply inbred today because a handful of genetically important Fiordland birds were never added to the population, and those that were suffered from mismanagement leading to the loss of all but one. Hindsight is 20/20, and we have the benefit of being critical of two underfunded organisations with competing visions and needs. However, as we've previously mentioned, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. As we face government cuts to conservation today and an ever-increasing conservation burden falls to under-resourced departments competing for funding and 'quick wins,' will we see similar mistakes made as we try to save other species?

The legacy of Inaction meant that seventeen of the eighteen Fiordland Kakapo were lost forever. 

Primary Sources

• Rhys Buckingham (Private interview with Invercargill Archives 2017)
• David Butler 'Quest For the Kakapo' 1989.
• Lands And Survey Reporting Notornis Magazine
• Personal Correspondence with Wildlife Division Officers & Lands and Survey Department Officers who wish not to be named.
• Official information Act request to the Department of Conservation for all Fiordland Kakapo files on record post 1950.
• Internet Archive Kakapo searches for Fiordland.
• Papers Past Fiordland Kakapo post 1950, Maud Island Transfers & National Parks Board

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