It's good news for our critically endangered kakapo as a new piece of technology is introduced to the breeding process.
There are only 147 Kakapo in the country but numbers this breeding season are looking extremely positive.
Helping with the cause is a drone which is used to transport bird semen for artificial insemination on Codfish Island.
“We've had 214 eggs a huge number, but less than 100 are fertile. So, there is a lot of lost productivity. This is one of the ways we are trying to make sure we can get more kakapo in the future,” a DOC ranger told 1 NEWS.
The drone cuts the hour-plus walk with the specimen down to just five minutes, but it’ll be months before DOC will know if it’s made any difference.
“We know that some of the females that we've inseminated have gone on to have fertile eggs, so it's a chance but we won't know until we do the genetic testing [to know] if those eggs are from the male she mated with naturally, or the male that we inseminated her with.”
So far 200 eggs have been laid and mating season is still going.
The birds only breed once every three-to-four years and this year the numbers are booming.
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