Wrybill Vs. Kakapo

The Justice League after reading 'Wrybills at Risk' by Jane Buxton compared New Zealand's own unique wrybill and kakapo.

Wrybill Vs. Kakapo

If you are in the forest or by a riverbed or coast, you may see some precious New Zealand birds. New Zealand is home to many native birds, two of which are the wrybill and the kakapo. These rare birds have many similarities but also many differences that will help you to recognise them and help you to know what to do to protect them.

Dev and Israel - Unique to New Zealand

These birds are only found in New Zealand making them very important to our country. The kakapo are usually found in the forest islands of Maud Island and Little Barrier Island. The wrybill are usually located in South Island Rivers, such as the Rakahuri river. These environments support these birds by providing them with food, shelter and camouflage meaning they can hide from predators

Priscilla and Sherlyn - Extinction

Both birds are in danger of becoming extinct. There are approximately 5000 wrybills and 126 Kakapos left. You might think that 5000 wrybills is a lot but there is actually not many left in New Zealand. As you can see there are not many Kakapos left at all because in the olden days people were killing them for meat, because of this the Kakapos number dropped down to only 69. This hunting almost led to the Kakapo becoming extinct. If either of these birds became extinct New Zealand would lose two of its most iconic birds.

Arav and Anthony - Protection

The wrybill lays its eggs in riverbeds so that the eggs can be camouflaged amongst the small stones, and pebbles. This hides the eggs from predators like stoats, weasels and cats. The Kakapo uses camouflage as protection from predators. The colour of the kakapo  feathers are green this means it can blend in with green plants. The kakapo also has another way of protecting itself from predators, the kakapo “freeze” when a fast predator approaches, for example cats.

Skye and Kalani - Breeding

The wrybill lay two eggs in riverbeds on the ground amongst small rocks. In contrast the kakapo lays between 1 to 4 eggs on the forest floor amongst the branches, and roots to protect their eggs from predators like cats, rats, ferrets, and stoats. For these birds to survive, they need more help from people. One way this could be done is breeding these birds in captivity and then returning them to their home once they are grown.

Chantelle - Organisations

The last similarity between these birds is that they both have organisations protecting them. The organisation that is helping to save the wrybill is the Rakahuri rivercare group. This group is helping the wrybill's population by setting traps for the wrybill's predators. They are also helping the wrybill population by putting up signs saying not to walk on the riverbed or if you have to walk through quickly and carefully. Where as the groups helping the population of the Kakapo (the Department of Conservation and Forestry and Bird) are educating people and trying to prevent hunters from killing the kakapo for it’s meat, which happened in the past.

In the future for these birds to survive people must help their population. This can be achieved by trying to make these birds as well known as the kiwi because then people will start being more careful and try to increase the population of these birds.  If everyone contributes the future of these birds may change and there population may just be able to survive and not disappear.

Most  of us think our comparison summary is Extended Abstract. This is because we have compared several characteristics and explained our ideas in detail. We have also thought about the future of these birds and what we could do to prevent the extinction of these unique birds.