Rat Island (24 page)

The prospect of rescuing the kakapo on the ebbing virility of Richard Henry Kakapo was but half the worry. Beyond the genetics lay another bottleneck, of space. In running up their numbers, the Codfish kakapos had run themselves out of room. (A single kakapo might command 150 acres of territory, wandering twenty miles in a night.) The island-bound birds had begun to exhibit anxieties. Young males had started breaking into nests and attacking chicks. Codfish had gotten dangerously crowded.

Merton, the man who had once lobbied so relentlessly for taking the kakapos into hand, now found himself campaigning to turn them loose. The time had come for someplace big enough and safe enough to let the nursemaids stand back and let the kakapos prosper on their own.

Such places made for a short list. There was Campbell Island, forty-four square miles of predator-free wilderness far adrift in the Southern Ocean—perhaps too far adrift. There was no telling how the immigrant kakapo would fare in this foreign land, or how the Campbell ecosystem might in turn fare with this bizarre new bird in the mix.

There had also been talk of clearing the predators from Stewart Island, third largest island of New Zealand and a former home of the kakapo. Stewart, though, came with people, some of whom held certain opinions about government helicopters dropping poison from the sky, some of whom believed that their pet cats came before kakapos.

Lately those now in charge of the kakapo's survival have their eyes focused on Fiordland's Resolution Island, where more than a century ago the man Richard Henry attempted the first kakapo rescue. In July 2008 eradication crews returned to vanquish Henry's demon, trapping what they believed to be all 258 stoats over all thirty-one square miles of Resolution. However romantic the notion of the kakapo's returning to Resolution Island, the reality comes with a cold splash. For there remain mice on Resolution. With the mice there remains a constant lure for mainland stoats contemplating the crossing, and with the stoats a commitment of eternal vigilance in guarding the island's shores.

Those now in charge of the kakapo's survival, it should be noted, no longer include Don Merton. After thirty years at the forefront of kakapo research and rescue, Merton retired in 2005. He has since volunteered his services to the kakapo team; the team has not since taken up his offer. For Merton the physical separation from his birds—Richard Henry above all—has weighed heavily. “It is a huge psychological wrench to no longer be intimately involved, after half a lifetime of intense association with this remarkable creature,” said Merton. “I regard him almost as one of the family.”

Merton would badly love to see Richard Henry back home, if such a place still exists. However much Resolution may now stand as the kakapo's most immediate hope for sanctuary, it ultimately renders the bird an orphaned refugee whose mother country died years ago.

Or maybe not. There remains at least one place that might serve for a homecoming. It survives as a spectacularly towering amphitheater of sheer rock walls high in the wildest reaches of Fiordland. Sinbad Gully was one of the last two valleys of Fiordland found to harbor kakapo, the place where Merton as a fledgling wildlife officer fifty years earlier began his lifelong search. There is good reason that the Sinbad kakapos held out so long, even as their last bastions fell. Those skyscraping slopes spanned a diversity of life zones that harbored a cornucopia of kakapo food. Those forbidding walls were the last fortress of Fiordland to be stormed by stoats.

Merton believes that Sinbad could be that fortress again. “It's a natural mainland island,” he said. Sinbad is surrounded on three sides by sheer cliffs and on the fourth by the sea. The gully is a geological stoat fence. “Stoats are capable of coming down out of the top four to five thousand feet,” said Merton, “but it wouldn't happen very often.” His idea—and he is not alone in the suggestion—is to clear the valley of predators, bring the kakapo home, and guard the few entrances against reinvasion. Or maybe not.

“It is not high on the current list,” answered Mick Clout, chair of the kakapo advisory council, “but it remains an option.”

Which is where the fence of Maungatautari comes in. Maungatautari, lying inland, may lack the majestic aura and romantic resonance of Fiordland's Sinbad Gully. But it is nevertheless the mainland, it is native kakapo range, and it is all but waiting. Tentative plans are to bring a few male kakapos to Maungatautari as early as 2011, for a trial visit. Everyone will be watching, to see if the fence holds them, to see if the forest suits them, to listen toward the hills for the beating of a heart.

O
NE
L
AST
S
ONG

With the first of September 2010, on the cusp of another breeding season on Codfish Island, came a report from the kakapo recovery team's lead scientist, Ron Moorhouse. The rimus had fruited well, said Moorhouse. It was shaping up to be another good year for kakapos.

But there was bigger news concerning the castaways of Codfish. Richard Henry Kakapo had been found to be sick. He'd been infected by a protozoan parasite, for how long nobody knew. But it was likely his caretakers had at last discovered the reason he'd been struggling to put on weight, the reason why the kakapo species' most desperately needed father figure had never boomed on Codfish.

The disease, it turned out, was treatable. Kakapo conservationists poisoned the parasites with antibiotics, eradicating every last one of the little invaders from Richard Henry's beleaguered body.

Richard Henry Kakapo had since grown the fattest he'd been in years. At last check, reported Moorhouse, his breast and belly had taken on a spongy feel, the telltale sign of a male kakapo getting ready to boom.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe the idea for this book to Will Murray, longtime sounding board and conservation sage, who alerted me to a radical new wildlife rescue that could “manufacture millions more birds with a swipe.” If in my two hundred pages I have conveyed the story half as well as Murray did in his opening five-minute pitch, then I have exceeded my goal.

The financial task of gathering this story was greatly eased by a journalism fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation. Without their help, I might never have witnessed the epic display of auklets at Sirius Point, or peeked into the fantastic hobbit forests of Richard Henry's homeland. To Peggy Engel and the Patterson folks, I remain forever grateful—as I do to my friends and colleagues Josh Donlan, Will Murray, Bill Ripple, and Angie Sosdian, who recommended they choose me.

To the more than one hundred scientists, conservation professionals, trappers, shooters, pilots, and animal rights advocates who shared with me their stories, I am indebted. Among them, I owe special thanks to Stacey Buckelew, Vernon Byrd, Gregg Howald, Helen James, Ian Jones, Lisa Matisoo-Smith, Don Merton, Rowley Taylor, Bernie Tershy, and Bruce Thomas, who each reviewed one or more chapters for their accuracy.

My ventures to certain otherwordly places were made even more memorable by certain special hosts. Captain Billy Pepper and able crew of the M/V
navigated a mindbending tour of the Aleutians with great skill and matching humor. Jeff Williams and Poppy Benson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service originally helped secure my space on the
—what has to be one of the most coveted berths on any seagoing vessel. And Lisa Spitler helped make Adak, “Birthplace of the Winds,” a most hospitable visit.

In New Zealand, I could not have imagined more generous hosts than Alan and Diane Hay in Auckland, Bruce and Pam Thomas in Nelson, the McClelland family in Invercargill, and the Cumbo clan in Dunedin. And if not for the last-minute heroics and monster truck of Vic and Chandra Vickers during the Blizzard of 2010, I would never have even made my flight out of D.C.

Thanks again to my agent Russ Galen and editor Kathy Belden, who make it seem easier than it ought to be.

Thanks also to Beth and Lori for the writers' retreat in wolf country, and to Dan and Jo of the Hotel Killigrew. To George and Sandy, Bob and Rachael, and Uncle Jon, title consultants and coconspirators of the Proudcastle Breakfast Club. To Thelma, Herm, Dee, and Pam, who found homes for the babies. To Jean, the rat whisperer. And of course, to Kathy, whose selfless love, patience, and prodding lured the resident scribe from his lonely cave to occasional glimpses of sunlight and sanity.

Finally, there remains the acknowledgment I was wishing never to write. Several days after signing off on the epilogue of this story, with the glorious news of Richard Henry Kakapo's miraculous revival, I received a note and photo from Don Merton, who had just returned from visiting the grand old bird at his foster home on Codfish Island. Merton wrote that he had gone to see his beloved friend, after years of separation, to say his farewells. The photo featured a beaming Merton cradling the big green kakapo in his arms. Merton somewhat casually added that both he and Richard Henry were in failing health, and their time would not be long.

The news hit with a hammer's blow. The last I'd heard, Richard Henry had somehow surged, hinting that the most valuable kakapo in the world might be gearing up one last time to step into the ring and vie for the affections of a female. The thought of Richard Henry breeding once again, infusing the little inbred band of survivors with new lifeblood, was enough to make a conservationist's breast swell like a booming kakapo. As for Merton, he'd mentioned earlier in the year that he was still quite fit for kakapo work, should the call ever come. But now here he was, so suddenly saying good-bye.

I wrote Ron Moorhouse, chief scientist of the kakapo recovery program, seeking answers about the mixed messages on Richard Henry's condition. “Don hasn't seen RH in years and RH has aged in that time,” answered Moorhouse. “For example he is now completely blind in one eye and moves much more slowly. On the other hand, from my perspective, RH is in much better condition than he was a year ago. Both of us are right, it's just a matter of timescale.”

Unfortunately, it was Merton's perspective that proved more prophetic. One month later, I received the news from Moorhouse:

Richard Henry was found dead on 24 December … He had recently left his normal home range and we were hopeful he might boom. Looks like the stress of getting into condition for a booming season may have been too much for him. Autopsy failed to find an obvious cause of death. We won't get the opportunity to collect and store sperm from Richard Henry. Fortunately he has three surviving chicks and we also have some of his somatic cells in storage just in case someone figures out how to clone a bird.

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