Kea chicks being hand-reared at Paradise Park

Three ‘very noisy’ Kea chicks are being hand-reared at Paradise Park in Hayle, Cornwall.

Director Nick Reynolds comments “We decided to hand-rear these chicks due to the parents having been unsuccessful at rearing their own chicks in the past,. They are from a new bloodline, so we will be able to place them with the chicks we had last year to create new pairs in future years. They will then be able to move on to other bird collections throughout Europe.”

Kea parrots are a close relatives of the flightless green Kakapo parrot from New Zealand which featured in Stephen Fry’s film about rare species.

The Kea is classified as a ‘vulnerable’ species mainly due to introduced mammals which are able to get into its nests to steal eggs and young.

 

They are famous for being curious and highly intelligent, and were chosen as No.3 in the BBC’s  ‘Britain’s Cleverest Animal’ programme.  The Keas at the Park were filmed doing a test which involved pulling strings to get to food treats.  The birds managed this easily, and enjoyed the novelty so much that they went on to destroy the whole test box, and even the mini cameras!

This species is naturally playful in the wild, probably because it had few natural ‘enemies’, such as rats or cats, in its native New Zealand, so needed very little fear to survive.