BirdLife Partner, Forest & Bird, has been working for many years alongside the New Zealand Government’s Department of Conservation to save the Kokako Callaeas cinereus on New Zealand’s North Island. This species is highly threatened by invasive alien predators.

Several Kokako pairs are now breeding successfully in the ‘Ark in the Park’, a fenceless reserve in a council-owned rainforest west of Auckland city managed by Forest & Bird. The key to success has been extremely efficient predator control. Ship rats have been reduced to 1% of their normal population level, and possums, stoats and feral cats have almost been eliminated.

Birds have been introduced to offshore islands, and individuals have been translocated to both new sites and remnant populations on the mainland, in all cases in association with predator-control. These measures, along with the establishment of the population in the Ark in the Park, will hopefully safeguard the future of the Kokako.