Ornithology: The Giant Green Parrot

The giant green parrot, the Owl parrot, or the Kakapo Strigops habroptilis, is perhaps the biggest parrot surviving on earth. First described by John Gray, in 1845, the giant green parrot is a large bird, nocturnal, green-colored, terrestrial bird, endemic to New Zealand. It eats foliage but it has metabolic issues that makes them difficult to survive. It can not fly just glides.

Destruction of their natural environment caused by us, humans, has forced the giant green parrot into areas where life is even harder than before. This, combined with predation from domestic cats, stoats and rats, have pushed them to the brink of extinction. Kakapos (that is the giant green parrots) have become extinct on the mainland and only survive on managed offshore islands where introduced rats and other predators have been eliminated. Currently (Jan 2009) there are 90, all of which have names.

If you want to learn more about the Kakapos giant green parrots the re is an excellent source in wikipedia. Also read the Kakapo Recovery Programme site, a program dedicated to save this biolical specie.

The Illustration shown is of a Kakapo. The source of this image is the book "Birds of New Zealand" by Walter Lawry Buller, published in 1873. Its copyright has expired, and because the original is in the public domain, this two-dimensional reproduction is also in the public domain