Kokako first bred in captivity at the National Wildlife Centre (Mt. Bruce) in 1986.
Captive pairs have regularly
fledged chicks since then, and the captive program expanded to Boundary Stream Mainland Island, the Auckland Zoo, Hamilton Zoo and Otorohanga
Kiwi House. Captive-bred birds do well when released to the wild, and have bred successfully on Kapiti Island, Tiritiri Matangi, and at
Boundary Stream Mainland Island.
While the captive breeding program has been a source of young kokako for translocation programs in the past, its current
focus is the propagation of rare genetic lineages - in particular, those of the Puketi and Taranaki populations. Five pair of kokako, as well as four young, unpaired birds, are currently held in captivity.
The 2005/2006 breeding season brought more good news for Taranaki: one Mount Bruce pair (Taranaki male "Tamanui" and Mapara female) nested before Christmas, and produced one chick which has just fledged. At this stage its sex is unknown. Staff were unable to access the nest to check whether there was another chick but they don't think there is.
The two other Mount Bruce pairs did not breed this season. One of these pairs- the female "Kahurangi" rescued from the Hunuas and hand-reared by Hamilton Zoo staff, plus the old Waikato male "PC"- are compatible, but have shown no signs of bonding or courtship. The second pair includes male "Poutama" (Tamanui's first son - half Taranaki, transferred last year from Otorohanga Kiwi House) and wild-caught female "Mihitai" from Mangatutu. They have been held separately for some time now as, unfortunately, they don't appear to be compatible.
At the Auckland Zoo pair, which includes a Puketi male, has produced one chick from their first clutch and it is doing well. The chick fledged before Christmas and is still being fed by his Dad. The female is now sitting on her second clutch, 2 eggs, and a nest camera has been installed to follow progress.
This pair's first chick from last year (a male) has been transferred to Hamilton Zoo, and has settled in well.
At Otorohanga Kiwi House a one-year-old male transferred from Mount Bruce (another half-Taranaki bird) was paired with female "Bianca" last winter, and they had their first clutch in December. The pair had bonded very well, with the male being very attentive to the female, feeding her on the nest. Their first nest was unsuccessful. Happily, this pair re-nested and in mid-March a single chick, possibly three-four days old, was observed in the nest. This is the first time that this pair has bred, and the first time that kokako have bred at Otorohanga.
Three female chicks have been sent down to Hamilton Zoo from Mataraua and staff are doing a fantastic job hand-rearing these chicks. One female will stay at the zoo to be paired with their young male from Auckland Zoo, and the other two are destined for release onto Lady Alice Island, where males from Puketi have previously been released.
The kokako population at Puketi, in Northland, is today represented by only a few surviving male birds.
Because only males remained, there
was little chance of saving the population on site. The effort to preserve Puketi's genetic lineage involves captive breeding and rearing. One
male from Puketi is currently held in captivity at Auckland Zoo, paired with a female kokako from Mapara.
An additional Puketi male has been translocated to the predator-free Mauimua/Lady Alice Island, along with two female kokako
who were born in Kaharoa. These females were brought into captivity at Hamilton Zoo as nestlings and reared to adulthood before being released onto Mauimua.
By captive-rearing the young females, it was possible to expose them to the song dialect of Puketi, rather than that of Kaharoa - this is expected to
enhance their ability to form pair bonds with Puketi males.
A local trust in the Puketi community is working towards creating a safe area of intensive predator control, in anticipation of the eventual
return of the Puketi kokako and their descendants.
Taranaki's kokako population similarly dwindled to a few lone males.
As for Puketi, the goal of the breeding program is to preserve and propagate the genetic lineage of Taranaki in captivity until the birds and
their descendants can safely be returned to the wild in Taranaki.
