Keeping Up With Kea

How Denver Zoo is helping make sure these endangered parrots will be around for generations to come

By Jessica Meehan, Bird Keeper

At Denver Zoo, our passion for animals extends well beyond our 80-acre campus. We have five field conservation sites on four continents, but we also support Zoo staff through grants that allow them to travel the world and work on projects they’re passionate about. 

For me, that passion project is the New Zealand-based Kea Conservation Trust (KCT). Kea hold a special place in my heart—from the ones we have here at the Zoo to their wild counterparts, which need our help. Denver Zoo started supporting the KCT in 2018, purchasing nine radio transmitters that were attached to birds during the January 2019 summer population surveys. These radio transmitters are designed especially for kea and fit onto their backs, allowing them to be tracked from the air and by land. These nifty transmitters indicate a bird’s location and whether she is nesting. This allows researchers to follow up during the breeding season to find and check the nests, install cameras to monitor them, and record the success or failure of the breeding attempt. The KCT fitted nine females with transmitters and has been following up on them over the last year.