Kea on the mend after rocky fall
How many humans does it take to save one of the most intelligent birds on the planet?
Meet Samson, a kea who spent six months recovering from a head injury, helped by many people from throughout southern New Zealand.
Kea are ordinarily inquisitive problem-solvers but Samson was left docile and lethargic after a brush with human technology.
The adult male kea was injured in a net gun incident during a bird survey in the Stuart Mountains in Fiordland in January.
The incident unfolded after the survey contractors found a group of 44 of the alpine parrots – ‘‘one of the largest’’ groups they’d seen in the area.
As part of the survey, the kea are captured and banded. Blood samples are also taken to test for lead poisoning.
Samson was caught by the net gun but landed badly on rocks, Tamsin Orr-Walker, of the Kea Conservation Trust, said.
He was dopey and offered little response to stimulation: ‘‘All of his symptoms were like a human who has been seriously concussed.’’
Samson was kept next to the chest of a contractor for several days. He was hand-fed while arrangements were made to fly him, by helicopter, to Queenstown.
There, a vet said he needed specialist care.
The Department of Conservation arranged for Samson to take flight once more – this time with Air New Zealand – and on to treatment at Dunedin’s Wildlife Hospital.
‘‘They have been just fantastic,’’ Orr-Walker said of the hospital, which opened in January.
Wildlife Hospital Trust secretary Jordana Whyte said Samson was one of the newly fledged hospital’s longest-staying patients, alongside Widget the takahe¯ . Only three of the 280 animals treated at the hospital so far this year were kea.
Kea are intelligent so it was important to keep them stimulated – and to keep their cages padlocked. ‘‘They observe you opening and closing the mechanism, so they can figure out how to let themselves out,’’ Whyte said.
But that was not the case for Samson. His head injury rendered him docile: unlike other kea, the seemingly disinterested Samson did not need tight security and new games to keep him stimulated.
‘‘Because of the head injury he was a bit more lethargic than you would have expected for a healthy kea to be, he was less inquisitive, and that was one of the reasons why we knew he needed more time.’’
The prognosis looked good for Samson. After months of recovery it was determined he could leave the hospital this month.
Orr-Walker said Samson had been recovering at Queenstown’s Kiwi Birdlife Park, where his balance was initially assessed as being very poor.
But after he was transferred to the display enclosure, which offered ‘‘good flight area’’ and 24/7 cameras, Samson was flying and interacting with his surrounds.
That was important as the trust had to provide regular updates to DOC and ‘‘if he is not able to be released then we have to look at what happens to him’’. Those options were for him to remain in captivity – or to be euthanased.
Fortunately Samson was recovering, albeit slowly, and it was hoped he could be released back to the Stuart Mountains in September.
Orr-Walker said the contractor was ‘‘completely gutted’’ over the incident, which prompted the introduction of a protocol making sure people were aware of the area where captured birds were likely to fall.