Old boy Sass farewelled.

Sadly we euthanized one of our Stewart Island founder kakapo, Sass, yesterday. Sass had been of relatively poor condition for the last few years and has gone down hill steadily over the last 3 months.

He was extremely light weight, had developed cataracts in both eyes recently, and in the last few days appeared to have been suffering from kidney failure.

As an adult of unknown age, Sass was found in April 1980 and transferred to Codfish Island in July 1987 (along with Nora, he was first to be transferred to Codfish).

He had fathered 6 chicks – ‘Robbie’, ‘Palmersan’, ‘Te Kingi’, ‘Blake’, ‘Kumi’ and ‘Kuihi’. He also had 3 grand-chicks through Kuihi – ‘Awarua’, ‘Waihopai’ and ‘Hokonui’, so his genetics are relatively well represented in the population.

Birds of an unknown age account for 34% of the kakapo population. Seeing some age related mortality is not unexpected, but reminds us of how rare and precious the kakapo are.

Sass’s passing takes the world kakapo population to 123. He will be greatly missed, but his legacy lives on.

source: kakaporecovery.org.nz

update: back in 2005, my friend matthias rohaut was lucky enough to meet sass at his feeding station, and he was also able to take pictures. (matthias got to see more kakapo than any of us). he also gave me permission to post them here, so i’ve uploaded two photos.

kakapo (strigops habroptilus)

there has been a major breakthrough in the kakapo recovery programme this year: semen specimen were collected earlier last year, and a total of six female kakapo were artificially inseminated, resulting in 2 confirmed successes: two of the fertilized eggs were a direct result of artificial insemination.
AI is especially important because there are a few males who dominate the gene pool of the 124-strong population.

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nearly 20 years after the book “last chance to see” was published, and 24 years after the bbc radio series of the same title first aired, the kakapo get another boost in publicity by the BBC:
the new tv documentary “last chance to see” revisits the species and looks at conservation successes and failures.
in episode 5, stephen fry and mark carwardine visited new zealand and the kakapo, and it seems like all it took for the rare parrot to get international attention once more, was the remark “you are being shagged by a rare parrot“. :)

Sirocco the kakapo an online phenomenon!
The online world is pretty new to DOC staff, but this week we saw how quickly things can blow up – in a remarkable and positive way!

It started a few days ago, when BBC aired the episode of their new series “Last Chance to See” which featured our favourite kakapo, Sirocco. In fact, what REALLY caught people’s interest, was when Sirocco got a bit ‘up close and personal’ with presenter Mark Cawardine. 650 000 Youtube hits later – and New Zealand’s very own kakapo had been catapulted into the international spotlight.

Within a matter of hours after Sirocco’s starring perfomance on “Last Chance to See”, his Facebook page jumped by another 750 friends, and now boasts 2500 online ‘friends’ who are besotted with kakapo and what we do to look after them here in New Zealand.

full article: blog.doc.govt.nz

 
by the way, sirocco now has his own facebook and twitter account.

filming and photographing the kakapo for the new BBC documentary series “last chance to see“, zoologist mark carwardine becomes part of something unexpected…

Stephen Fry sees photographer get humped by a rare parrot – watch hilarious video

This clip is more suited to the top shelf of a seedy sex shop than part of a nature documentary presented by Stephen Fry.

While filming a kakapo parrot for new BBC programme Last Chance to See, the actor is taken aback when the bird leaps onto a crewmember’s head and starts humping him.

Exploding with laughter, Q1 host Stephen says: “This is one of the funniest things I have ever seen, you are being shagged by a rare parrot.”

The excited kakapo, christened Sirocco, flaps its wings and attempts to mate with the photographer for a full minute before its claws start to draw blood.

Stephen was in New Zealand to record scenes for the wildlife series, based on the search of animals on the brink of extinction.

The kakapo species, known for being fat and flightless, is extremely rare.

Perhaps poor Sirocco should try taking out his frustration on another parrot…

source: mirror.co.uk

 

 

whenever somebody is stung by a bee or wasp, i remember there’s a rule of thumb about a good way of instantly diminishing the effects of the poison. however, i never recollect the vital part…

from a chemical standpoint, most types of insect poison are acids, which means you can (at least partly) neutralize them with bases.
one of the exceptions to this is the family of wasps: their poison’s are bases, which can thus be countervailed with an acid.

 
so, the next time you witness an insect bite (and i’m crossing my fingers it won’t be you who’s getting stung), you might want to try one of these household remedies:

• bee bite (also works with ants, mosquitoes etc.): acids – diluted vinegar, diluted lemon juice, even orange juice or carbonated soft drinks.
• wasp bite: bases – diluted soda, baking powder, …

on a side note: the poison in most jellyfish nematocysts is also acidic. if you were stung but didn’t bring ammonia to the beach, your last resort would be urine (a relatively neutral buffer solution). the book i got all this information from says “if you think that’s too gross, you’ve never felt the pain of a real jellyfish sting.”
 

source (in german): Wawra E., Dolznig H, Müllner E. (2003): Chemie verstehen. Facultas Verlags- und Buchhandels AG, p. 164

in the forests of venezuela, there’s a rare frog that offers views i never dreamt of: the glass frog (cochranella antisthenesi) is partly transparent and lets you see directly into its interior.

in this picture by h. & h.j. koch, you can see a female and her eggs.

more information on the family of glass frogs (wikipedia): de, en

everybody knows that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but i think many beholders will agree to call these critters what scientists refer to as …”pretty ugly”. ;)
here’s a list of the ugliest and/or creepiest little creatures i’ve come across.

in german:
schönheit liegt bekanntermaßen im auge des betrachters, aber ich denke, dass so mancher betrachter diese tierchen für das hält, was wissenschafter als “ziemlich hässlich” bezeichnen würden. ;)
es folgt eine liste der hässlichsten/eigenartigsten kreaturen, die mir bisher untergekommen sind.

petromyzon marinus
en: sea lamprey | de: meerneunauge
more photos: lateral view, google

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