Hello

It is with great sadness that we share the loss of one of our founding trustees, a conservation champion and our great friend, Ron Nilsson.  

Ron spent a lifetime curious about, caring for and advocating for native forests and the native birds that inhabit them.  The South Island kōkako held a very special place in his heart.

We share a heartfelt note about him below, along with details of a memorial service to be held in Christchurch on 4th December. 

In addition, the latest reports of encounters are reviewed and we update you on the bioacoustic project, a collaboration with Professor Stephen Marsland, Victoria University Wellington.  

Thank you so much for your continued interest and your support.  As always, you can help our work with a donation, small or large, perhaps in memory of Ron. 

Inger Perkins

Manager, South Island Kōkako Charitable Trust

It is with a very heavy heart that I share the sad news of the death of one of our founding trustees, a conservation champion and our great friend, Ron Nilsson.

"You will be forever remembered in the mountains, in the bush, besides the rivers, with the birds."

Read about Ron and find out about a memorial service here.

Reports always slow down in the winter months but they have continued to roll in and they include some promising encounters from people out and about tramping as well as volunteers on dedicated search expeditions, including deploying fancy camera trap platforms and wearing GoPro cameras.

Since our last update in April, we have added 21 new reports to our database.  A few are still awaiting further review but most, except those that have been confirmed not to have been the South Island kōkako, are being added to our interactive map.

Kahurangi Park is the star performer in terms of encounter reports received over the past few months.

Read the summary here.

Some 10,000 hours of recordings or around 6TB of data were collected last summer when at least 20 acoustic recorders were deployed at each of four sites of interest to the Trust for two weeks at each site. 

Automated analysis of these and a few more terabytes of other recordings kindly provided by DOC, along with months of work to develop and refine filters by Professor Stephen Marsland and his team resulted in only 20 recorded calls that merited further attention.  

Find out more about the project and what happens next here.

DNA analysis uncovers mystery of wattle bird evolution

The ODT reported recently on research into the evolutionary history of kōkako and fellow wattle bird family members huia and tieke/saddlebacks by a team from the University of Otago. 

The research, led by anatomy PhD candidate Pascale Lubbe, has found that the North Island forms of both kōkako and tieke split from their South Island relatives about 2.5-3 million years ago.  

Read the ODT story here.

Animals on the brink - 1997 recording

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, the New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound, hold a vast collection of recordings, some of which are accessible via their public catalogue and some of which need special permission to listen to or watch. 

In 1997, Matthew Lark presented a radio series looking into some of our native birds, reptiles and insects that were thought by most scientists to be extinct.  "This programme looks at the ongoing search for the South Island Kokako, which many conservationists hope will soon be discovered."

Some of you may have heard this when it was first aired, but we're delighted to have permission to share this now.

Listen to Animals on the Brink.  Part 2 - The South Island Kōkako here.  (If it's not immediately available, it is due to be available 18th November so please try again later.)

There are many ways you can help

In addition to actually looking out for the South Island kōkako and keeping a phone or camera ready to grab a recording, photo or video - and looking out for feathers - we need your help in other ways to maintain the search to find this ancient bird so that it can be conserved appropriately.

You can become a Friend of the Trust or make a donation here. 

You might like to make a donation in memory of our South Island kōkako champion, Ron Nilsson.  

And don't forget, when we have enough new Friends, we will be drawing a winner from our Friends for a beautiful painting of the South Island kōkako by Jos Browning.

Need more information? 

There's plenty on our website including all you need to know and our Search Blog 

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