On the front cover, a timid-looking Hokonui peers from behind a mossy tree: born in 2009 to mother Kuihi and father Barnard, he has a sister, Awarua, and a brother, Waihopai. Appearances can be deceptive though, and males may kill each other in a fight for superior territory.
The author opens with a descriptive background of this large nocturnal flightless parrot, camouflaged so perfectly against the moss-covered vegetation of damp forest.
Much of the story is told through the lives of individual birds such as Nora, of Stewart Island, whose nest with three chicks was the first to be discovered in the recovery programme in 1981. She is still alive, for kakapo appear to have a longevity in the vicinity of a century.
Only a few centuries ago, kakapo were common across much of New Zealand.
So what went wrong? The answers are the usual two: humans and their entourage of pests.
Sadly, kakapo were far too useful for their own good, were excellent eating, preserved well, and yielded beautiful skins and feathers prized in ceremonial cloaks.
They were smelly, so easily tracked with dogs, were virtually defenceless, and clearance of their forest habitat was disastrous.
Early European explorers reported the species to be still abundant in the north and west of the South Island but it became clear by the 1860s that numbers were declining rapidly.
And so began the first determined conservation effort, established on Resolution Island, Dusky Sound, by Richard Henry. Ground-nesting birds, eggs and chicks have no hope against alien stoats and the like, and once these reached Resolution Island, Henry could do nothing.
Not a lot happened until a reinvigorated conservation programme began in the 1950s and more successfully in the 1970s.
The realisation that kakapo did not react well to captivity, and would have to be managed in the wild, was pivotal. This dictated relocation to various remote islands such as Codfish Island (off Stewart Island) that could hopefully be kept predator-free.
The recovery from an almost unviable 40 birds to today's number is all good news, but the author's superbly detailed accounts of the luck and setbacks along the way make for some nail-biting.
Of course, the Department of Conservation (Doc) has diversified the population and shuffles individuals to maintain genetic vigour, but anything can happen. With a bird that breeds slowly and erratically, there's a long road to the next population milestone of perhaps 500.
We are surely all behind the author in dreaming of a predator-free Resolution Island supporting 800 birds, managed as a population rather than as individuals.
This cliffhanger is everyone's reading, beautifully told and richly photographed. The photo of the pair eating supplejack berries is world-class.
It is gratifying to read in the small print that copies of this book have been donated to all intermediate and secondary schools in New Zealand, thanks to sponsorship by Rio Tinto Alcan, Forest and Bird and Doc, and that the Charles Fleming Fund, Royal Society of New Zealand, helped with publication costs.
- Clive Trotman is a Dunedin arbitrator and science presenter.
