Toiora and Huhana-2-A-19 fly home to Whenua Hou!

With the help of Auckland Zoo and our partners, two more precious kākāpō have flown home!

Toiora (formerly Esperance-2-B-19 before she was gifted a name by our staff) and Huhana-2-A-19 flew home via an Air New Zealand flight to Whenua Hou yesterday afternoon. Toiora literally grew up into a confident kākāpō before our eyes, spending an amazing 85% off her life at our Veterinary Hospital to receive critical treatment for aspergillosis – that’s 276 days in total!

It really was touch-and-go for Toiora when she arrived here in May 2019 and our wonderful partners at Kākāpō Recovery and our staff are incredibly proud of this little survivor (this is the direct translation of her name from te reo!). Because of all this time in specialist human care you can see that she is not too sure what exactly this magical forest-floor was when she returned to the island yesterday, but under the watchful eye of our partners she will be exploring the island in no time.

Huhana-2-A-19 was originally returned home late last year after being treated and cleared of aspergillosis, but due to hurting her wing on the island she came back to the Auckland Zoo Vet Hospital for veterinary care.

With the return of these two to their island home we’re now have only two kākāpō left in our care. In total we’ve been able to care for a staggering 28 kākāpō chicks, juveniles and adult birds during this time – work that we feel absolutely privileged to contribute to.

All things going well the two remaining birds – Margaret-Maree and Kuihi-2-A-19 – should also return home soon so we’ll keep you posted as this news progresses.