Species profile
Strigops habroptilus
Kakapo
This is a curated published estimate, not a live census. Estimates may refer to mature individuals, wild individuals or a documented range and are not directly comparable between species.
CR · Critically Endangered — Critically Endangered — extreme risk of extinction in the wild
About this species
Kakapo (Strigops habroptilus) is part of the curated SpeciesWatch catalogue and is classified as Critically Endangered. The kakapo is the world's only flightless parrot — and the heaviest, with males reaching 4 kg — evolved on islands without predators until humans arrived. Its recorded population direction is increasing. That is encouraging, but it does not remove continuing pressures or make every population secure.
Habitat, behaviour and ecological role
This profile associates the species with terrestrial, island, forest. These labels summarise environments used during different stages of its life rather than drawing an exact range boundary. Every single kakapo (around 250 birds) has a name, a microchip and a personal conservation team; breeding is managed bird by bird. Its anatomy and behaviour are responses to those environments, while movement can connect distant places requiring different forms of management.
Why this species is at risk
Males boom like a foghorn from hollow bowls they dig in the ground, a call so low it can be felt more than heard, kilometres away. The catalogue records 3 principal pressures for this profile: Invasive predators, Disease, Low genetic diversity. They should not be treated as isolated causes. Habitat change, exploitation, pollution, disease and climate stress can reinforce one another, while the importance of each pressure varies between regions and through time.
Conservation outlook
Biosecurity, health surveillance and careful management of small populations help contain risks that can spread rapidly. Actions need long-term monitoring and revision as evidence changes; a positive intervention in one place does not by itself represent recovery across the species.
Editorial review: 2026-08-21
Threat factors
Known occurrences
Dots are georeferenced occurrence records from OBIS (marine) and GBIF (global), not individual animals and not a complete range map. Up to 500 recent API results are cached; the profile renders at most 500 points.
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