Kea are sacred to Ngai Tahu and have been fully protected since 1986 - but stoats and feral cats don’t know that. These hungry, non-native predators are munching the unique New Zealand parrot for breakfast, lunch and dinner, threatening the bird’s future.
Conservationists are unsure how many kea are left. They can fly hundreds of kilometres, so are hard to pin down. It is not possible to round them up and conserve them on a predator-free island, unlike the flightless kakapo. There may be 5000 - possibly far fewer.
There are fears the situation is particularly dire east of the Southern Alps divide.
The sad story of kea decline includes around 150,000 killed by people, prompted by kea attacks on sheep. The government paid a bounty to kill them. The scheme was ended in 1971 but this has not saved the kea from stoats, feral cats and other risks caused by humans.
Ngai Tahu’s spokeswoman for kea Fiona Sloan says kea are a taonga - sacred - species, known for living in forested mountains. They are our "guardians up the mountains - they guided us around the maunga". The bird is a "treasure to uphold ... so it is around for our children’s children’s children."
In the past, the population was "huge" she says, but then "we moved into their area, they didn’t move into ours."
"The less we interact with them up close, the more they would stay in their own habitat, in the forest."
Kea Conservation Trust field co-ordinator Lydia McLean said locations such as Monkey Creek on the Milford Rd are "scrounge sites" that lure kea away from foraging for foods that are good for them, in their natural forest habitat.
"It would be a tragedy if they disappeared. They seem to have a sense of humour, are innovative and have managed to thrive in an inhospitable environment. They should be our national bird."
Ms McLean said far and away the biggest problem was predation.
She had seen stoats treating kea nests as a regular supermarket visit, taking a chick a week.
"It’s like they know they get bigger, so they come back later for the next one."
Department of Conservation science adviser and kea specialist Josh Kemp said predator control technology was largely available but must be supported and funded "at an appropriate scale."
"If we can’t save the kea it will be because of people, not predators. It will be because people were obstructive, narrow minded or just silly."
Kea live in forests and most of New Zealand used to be forest. So their natural breeding ground was previously large, but due to deforestation kea nesting sites are now largely restricted to mountainous areas only in the South Island.
Kea can also fly huge distances. There have been recent sightings of lone kea as far east as Balclutha and Oamaru, where trees are in short supply - but the occasional lost or exploring bird doesn’t mean a behavioural change. They are unlikely to start breeding in urban backyards.
Mr Kemp describes kea distribution across the South Island as a "source-sink dynamic". West of the Southern Alps - Kā Tiritiri o te Moana - there is a "source" of breeding kea. East of the alps - including most of Otago and Southland and further north - there is a population "sink" of faster declining kea numbers.
Killer stoats are probably everywhere, but feral cats are thought to be far more prevalent east of the divide. It rains more on the west coast and cats do not like the wet. However, cats are also capable of clambering over mountains. The battle against them is an important one to win.
The Kea Recovery Group is a partnership involving the Department of Conservation, the Kea Conservation Trust and Ngai Tahu. The group is leading the development of the imminent strategy to recover the kea, which has taken three years to prepare and will include a focus on predator control.
Doc science adviser Kerry Weston, who leads the recovery group strategy, said the habit of kea hanging out at popular tourist and tramping locations can give a "false perception" that there were plenty of kea around.
These kea are often juveniles. Kea can have a long lifespan - more than 30 years - which may also contribute to an incorrect impression that the bird is doing fine.
However even in hot pots where kea have been known to scavenge, such as Canterbury skifields, they are now less likely to be seen, says Ms Weston. "They are in real trouble in the eastern areas."
It requires money and intensive labour to find and monitor kea nests and set and check traps for stoats, feral cats and also for possums, which can also kill kea and disturb kea nesting sites.
It also requires money to undertake aerial drops of the pesticide 1080 which kills rats and stoats. The stoats are often poisoned by eating the dead rats.
Due to the costs of poisoning, trapping and the need for further development of predator control there were "large areas where predators are not controlled," Ms Weston said.
She estimated only about 40% of the land that kea range across - about 3.5 million hectares - is managed to protect kea.
Four out of 10 adult kea who were radio tracked the year after a beech mast - where beech trees bloom en-masse - were killed, which is "very unhealthy for the population", says Ms Weston.
Stoats and feral cats were found to be the main killers in equal measure, preying on kea of all ages not just babies on the nest.
Yet another unfortunate additional problem is rabbit infestation of farms and tussock land, which fuels feral cat numbers, which then expand into any nearby forested kea territory.
