Kakapo chick rushed into surgery

ROBYN EDIE/Southland Times

CHECK UP TIME: Professor Joanne Paul-Murphy getting one of the 20-day-old kakapo chicks from Codfish Island ready for an X-ray at Elles Road Vet Services in Invercargill yesterday.

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Saving kakapo is a complex operation.

American zoological medicine professor Joanne Paul-Murphy has been in Invercargill assisting the National Kakapo Recovery Team for three weeks, while on holiday from her work at California University.

It's been a busy time, with one chick having to be rushed to Invercargill's Elles Road Vets for emergency surgery after being attacked in its nest on Codfish Island/Whenua Hou last weekend.

The male kakapo's (Arab) aggressive attack left a 20-day-old kakapo chick (nicknamed Bluster) with a 7cm tear down its side, a 2cm gash to its head and both ends of its big toe missing.

"The gash down its side was almost as big as the chick," Professor Paul-Murphy said. Elles Road vet nurse Tracey Jennings and clinic owner Sandy Cooper assisted the surgery.

It was the first time Miss Jennings had anaesthetised such a rare bird.

"It was pretty nerve-racking but it was amazing too, to be working so closely with a kakapo chick," she said.

Dr Cooper said her clinic had been helping the recovery team during breeding seasons for the past 30 years.

This year had been particularly busy because it was the highest number of chicks ever to hatch (36 hatched and 33 have survived).

"So you can expect for there to be more problems (with more birds) and we just try to help them as best we can."

Yesterday, Professor Paul-Murphy was back at Dr Cooper's surgery examining a chick with a leg deformity.

The chick was x-rayed to find the cause of its leg growing "pigeon toed". It was important to establish what was wrong and try to correct it.

The flightless birds could grow up to weigh several kilograms and heavily relied on their legs to get around, Dr Cooper and Professor Paul-Murphy said.

Kakapo Recovery Team leader Deidre Vercoe said 26 chicks were being looked after in Invercargill after food shortages and some contracted respiratory problems on the island.

Seven chicks still remained there. "They were all doing really well," she said.

However, they would also be transferred if needed.

The Kakapo Recovery Programme's 2008-09 budget is $820,000 down $60,000 from previous years.

amy.milne@stl.co.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News