It was a race between Lisa, Cindy and Flossie - and some dozen other expectant mothers.

In the end, Flossie prevailed Feb. 20 by producing the first kakapo chick hatched in three long years. It was a big, healthy baby, watched over not only by proud Flossie, a first-time mom, but an anxious team of New Zealand scientists and volunteers.

A fuzzy kakapo chick roams the forest floor.

Since then, 17 more kakapos have hatched, a seasonal record since monitoring of the bird began in the 1980s. Grand total of kakapos now in the world: 80, up from 62, and counting.

Eight-pound parrot
If you’ve tooled around the ‘net much reading about parrots, you’ve probably bumped into the kakapo, often billed as the world’s strangest psittacine.

The rotund green New Zealand parrot weighs over eight pounds, three times as much as the hyacinth macaw. Known as a midnight rambler, it spends most of the night scrambling about on the ground and most of the day snoozing.

Experts speculate that kakapos once weighed much less and could fly. But thousands of years living in predator-free environments on the isolated islands of New Zealand led them to evolve into flightless birds with powerful claws for hiking and climbing.

When people, pets and predators such as stoats, weasels and ferrets arrived on the islands in the 1800s, the kakapo’s strategy of remaining motionless and trying to blend into its surroundings failed and it declined to endangered status.

More babies coming
Today, kakapos live only in protected sanctuaries on Codfish Island, Maud Island, and Little Barrier Island, where New Zealand conservationists have created a near-predator-free environment.

Adult kakapos are rotund, green flightless birds.

A 12-person Kakapo Recovery Programme team cares for the birds, moving them about the islands as breeding patterns dictate, and sitting by the nests all night if necessary to make sure nothing disturbs the eggs or chicks.

Bolstering the kakapo population, still dangerously close to extinction, has not been easy. Earlier this breeding season, which started in January, things looked a little shaky when a kakapo named Lisa, who had mated and nested early, laid three infertile eggs. Workers quickly removed them so she would have a chance to mate and lay again.

Now, it appears 2002 could yield a bonanza of kakapo chicks, thanks in part to plenty of rimu, a fruit that triggers breeding.

In these happy times for the kakapo, three dozen eggs are still expected to hatch.

Want to help save the kakapo? The Kakapo Recovery Programme of New Zealand needs your tax-deductible donations.