Two baby kākāpō and 122 giant wētā just moved into a fortress forest — after a record breeding season

Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari is a mountain of native forest in New Zealand's Waikato, ringed by a 47-kilometre fence that keeps predators out — and this week, as the sanctuary marked 25 years of restoration, it welcomed remarkable new residents. Two juvenile male kākāpō — flightless, nocturnal parrots among the rarest birds on Earth — named Awarua A2 and Tiwhiri A4, joined three males already living there in a trial of whether fenced mainland forest can house a growing population. They arrive after a record breeding season that produced 90 chicks and lifted the total kākāpō population to 325, the highest of the recovery era — success that is itself the problem: the birds need more safe places to live. With them came 122 Mahoenui giant wētā, huge flightless insects classed as nationally critical, bred through the Department of Conservation's recovery programme. 'The arrival of these new kākāpō and wētā is a reminder that this is not a finished story,' said chief executive Helen Hughes.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program