Is Native Ground Parrot Really Extinct

Chronicle (Levin), 22 March 1949, Page 5

Is Native Ground Parrot Really Extinct

DUNEDIN, Mar. 21. Ts tlie kakapo or the New Zealanti grouinl parrot really extinct as hus been believed for vears or is it likt the recentlv re-discovered ifotorni.B hiding away in some f'astness of thn deep soutli-west fiordland1? Tkis is one of tlie questions aliout Xew Zealand bird Iife that niay be answered in the next week or so by a party of young seientists who have sailed froin MiJ ford Sound for Resolution Island in the Dusky Sound. The partv consisted of Mr R. Keane. of the Department of Internai Ail'airs, Mr P. Bull, from the Department ot Scientific and Industrial Research, Mr C. 1. Lindsay, of the Dominion Museuiri. and Mr F. Woodrow, a well-known Canadian trapper from Stewart Island, alJ of wliom have been working with the Kew Zealand and American liordland expedition at Caswell Sound and in the Upper Stillwater regioxx. The men took their own supplies and equipment foi several weeks, aml will make as thorougli an inve.stigation of the wild life on Iiesolute Island as is possible in the time at their disposal. It is also expeeted that Dr G. B. Orbell, of Invercargill, who last vear re-discovered the notornis which had been thought to be extinct, will arrive in Duskv Sound at about the same time with a party of assistants tc make a search in the 'area possibly for notornik. Resolution Island is a bird sanctuarv, and verv few people have been there since World War I, at about. which time there was a earetaker. No reports have been made on the wild life of the island since about that time. Resolution Island, was diseovered in 1773 by Captain Oook who sailed into Dusky Sound, or Dusky Bay as he called it, in search of an anchorage. He had then on Marcli 20 of that year been 117 days at sea without once sighting land. There was plenty of wild life on the Island.