Elwin the kākāpō narrowly escaped death after heading out on an adventure outside his home of Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari. 

The 15-year-old escapee is the latest kākāpō to have found a way over the sanctuary’s predator-proof fence, but made it back to safety thanks to a tanker driver. 

Tyler Lindsey spotted Elwin in the middle of a rural road in the early hours of January 2, where the bird forced his tanker to a stop. 

“I was working... on Scott Road... and as I was coming around a corner I saw there was a bird in the middle of the road. I thought it was a turkey. 

“When I came closer and the headlights were shining on it, I saw the bird was bright green and I stopped. He hid his head under his wing [at first], and when he poked his head out, I realised it wasn’t your normal bird. 

“I’m shocking for not avoiding stuff [when driving on the road], but I do a lot of skim reading ... and read about the kākāpō escapes a little while ago. They have pictures [with the stories] so I knew what [kākāpō] look like.” 

Lindsey said after Elwin had wandered off, he continued to pick up the next share. 

“But I jumped on the DoC website to see what to do and rang the hotline. The lady on the phone first said it couldn’t be a kākāpō because they don’t live in the wild in the North Island, but I told her about the escapes. 

“I also emailed the sanctuary, because there are lots of farms and dogs around that area and I would’ve hated to read that a kākāpō had been killed by a dog or something.” 

Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari general manager Helen Somerville said Tyler’s prompt reaction helped the team to get Elwin back to safety quickly. 

“We received notification [about Elwin’s rough whereabouts] around 2.30am and were able to retrieve him within a couple of hours. He was hiding behind one of the local schools. 

“My first thought, when I heard about the escape was ‘Thank goodness for Tyler and thank goodness for all the media coverage, so that he could understand what he was seeing.” 

Lindsey said the encounter with Elwin was awesome. 

“It’s quite cool, I really like our native birds. I’m probably the first person in 40 years to see a kākāpō on the road. It was certainly the first time I’ve seen one semi-up-close.” 

He said the encounter also prompted him to be proactive about educating his kids about our native wildlife. 

“I really want to take them to Sanctuary Mountain now.” 

The first four kākāpō were translocated to the Waikato sanctuary in July. Photo / Danielle Zollickhofer. Photo / Danielle Zollickhofer 

Somerville said the sanctuary’s kākāpō team had unsuccessfully been trying to locate Elwin the day before learning about the escape. 

“The management plan [for the kākāpō] says we should be carrying out monthly checks on the birds by now, but because of the previous departures, we are still doing daily checks. 

“There is always the suspicion that a bird could be outside the fence ... but it’s quite common not to be able to find a bird for a couple of days because of the size of the sanctuary and because we have to use the triangulation method.” 

Triangulation determines a position based on the distance from other points or objects that have known locations, and while all the birds wear backpack-style transmitters and GPS units, there are some limitations in the technology. 

“We are waiting for new technology to come in. DoC has gone global... and found a potential solution that needs to be trialled but it’s not here yet. We expect it to arrive within the next couple of months.” 

Sanctuary Mountain is also using a special drone to monitor the birds. It recently broke down, but PB tech heard about it and fixed the drone for free. 

“We used the drone between Christmas and New Year to locate kākāpō that were close to the fence, but if the birds are in the dense bush, we can’t use it because the drone can’t see below the tree canopy.” 

Elwin was part of the second cohort of six kākāpō which moved into Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, near Cambridge, in September.  

He is part of a historic trial to see whether the nocturnal parrots can thrive in a fenced sanctuary because the predator-free islands are close to capacity. 

Sanctuary Mountain has a two-strike policy for the birds which means if a kākāpō escapes the fence twice, the specific bird is going to be relocated to one of the predator-free offshore islands near Stewart Island where they came from. 

DoC made the decision to relocate Motupōhue, Manawanui and Kanawera back south in November, bringing the kākāpō population in Waikato down to seven. 

Luckily it was only Elwin’s first time out, so he is now back inside the sanctuary’s forest. 

Danielle Zollickhofer is a multimedia journalist and assistant news director at the Waikato Herald. She joined NZME in 2021 and is based in Hamilton.