Norfolk Island Kākā

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iNorfolk Island Kākā

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Psittaciformes
Family:	Psittacidae
Genus:	Nestor
Species:	N. productus

Binomial name

Nestor productus
(Gould, 1836)

The Norfolk Island Kākā (Nestor productus) is an extinct species of large parrot with a prominent beak. Its plumage was olive-brown, with an orange throat and straw-coloured breast. It inhabited the rocks and treetops of Norfolk Island and adjacent Phillip Island. It was a relative of the Kākā from New Zealand.

It was first described by the naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg following the discovery of Norfolk Island by James Cook on 10 October 1774. It was hunted for food and trapped as a pet from the arrival of the first settlers in 1788 onwards. The species' population suffered heavily after a penal colony was maintained from 1788 to 1814, and again from 1825 to 1854, and tasked with preparding the island for settlement. The species became extinct in the wild in the early nineteenth century. It was not recorded by Ensign Abel D. W. Best on either Norfolk or Phillip Island in his 1838/1839 diary entires. As Best hunted and collected specimens as a pastime, including the Norfolk Island Parakeet (which he called "Lowries", being similar in shape), it is hard to accept that he would not have documented this much more attractive quarry, had the kākā still been present (Moore, 1985). The last bird in captivity died in London in 1851.

The bird was formally described by John Gould in 1836, from a specimen at the Zoological Society of London. At least seven specimens, probably some 15, survive. The Naturalis in Leiden has 2 (RMNH 110.061 and RMNH 110.068), of which the latter, acquired at an unknown date, is probably from Phillip Island, while the former is supposedly so and was purchased in 1863, long after the species' assumed disappearance. It is more likely, given Phillip Island was already overrun with feral pigs, rabbits, goats and chicken in late 1838, that the 1863 specimen was purchased from another collection.

[edit] References

BirdLife International (2004). Nestor productus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is listed as extinct
Moore, J. L. (1985): Ensign Best's bird observations on Norfolk Island, Notornis 32(4): 319–322. PDF fulltext