Writing about the fates of critically endangered species has a tendency to be, as you might guess, an abject bummer. The Earth is, largely regardless of what we do at this point, in the midst of the sixth mass extinction in the 3.8 billion years that life has existed on the planet, and unlike the previous five that were closely tied to cataclysmic events such as asteroid impact or massive volcanic activity, this one is indisputably our fault. In the course of only a few hundred years, as mankind has spread to every corner of the globe, we have altered the environment and climate around us, disrupting food chains and adaptation faster than nature/evolution can keep up. In doing so, we’ve driven thousands of observed species extinct, and countless others we know nothing about. But–but–our efforts as a species have also demonstrated that when we put our mind to it, there is often much we can do to help a species rebound, even from the very brink of disaster. Just look at the noble kakapo.
Oh, you don’t know the kakapo? Stylized as Kākāpō in its native New Zealand, it’s a verdant-looking species of green flightless, nocturnal parrot that was particularly vulnerable to the effects of human beings arriving in its delicate ecosystem. This is actually something that didn’t happen until after the year 1,300 AD, as New Zealand was the last major landmass on Earth to receive its first settlers, who found the curious birds to have few natural defenses. We are talking, after all, about a flightless, round bird with few ways to avoid an active human predator, which no doubt made them very easy targets for the native Māori hunters who gave them their name, which literally means “night parrot.”
The historical record suggest the Māori not only hunted the kakapo but kept them as pets, collected their feathers, and wove them into their mythology and history. It is unlikely, with the cultural reverence they eventually developed for the species, that the Māori would have over-hunted the kakapo to the point of extinction, but this proved to be just the beginning of the struggles for these birds. The arrival of European settlers vastly accelerated their decline, not only from hunting but from the introduction of many new predators the kakapo was ill-equipped to escape, from wild and domesticated cats, to ferrets and weasels. It was essentially as if an entire new ecosystem had been brought in specifically to target the flightless birds, an anti-kakapo hit squad.
The kakapo population unsurprisingly collapsed to the point that they almost disappeared, surviving only in a few small clusters. New Zealand’s Department of Conservation estimates that at their lowest point, there were only 51 confirmed, living birds in 1995. By this point, however, efforts were already well underway to save the species from extinction. And those efforts have been a gradual success that got some major good news this week, when the same agency announced that there had been what it called a “kakapo mating frenzy,” producing a record 90 new chicks in a single breeding season. The current count of 325 surviving kakapos is actually estimated to be the most that have been alive at one time at any point in the last 75 years, and the researchers are optimistic those numbers will continue to climb.
The kākāpo population number officially now starts with a 3!!!!
— rahaeli (@rahaeli.bsky.social) 5:10 PM · Aug 31, 2026
These results, though, are not something that happens overnight, and this is the harsh reality of preserving a critically endangered species from leaving the world forever: It involves not just years, but decades of attention and labor by people who can be bothered enough to to take action. In order to take emergency action in the case of the kakapo, conservationists in New Zealand first located their remaining small clusters in the 1980s and 1990s and began the process of relocating the survivors to offshore islands that were thankfully free from the likes of rampaging cats or ferrets. They obviously ensured these places had adequate food sources, and tracked the birds as they adjusted to their new reality. And ever so slowly, the population leveled out and began to recover, a trend that now seems to be accelerating–the population passed 200 for the first time in only 2020, and now we find ourselves at 325. This is especially impressive given that the kakapo is a slow breeder and does not breed every season–instead, they breed on average every two to four years. The adult birds, however, are thankfully long-lived like many parrots, and can have almost human lifespans, giving them numerous chances to breed. This year specifically, an unusually plentiful fruit harvest in native rimu evergreen trees is thought to have spurred the kakapos into their so-called breeding frenzy, resulting in record births of new chicks. The researchers are optimistic those birds, with this kind of nourishment, could potentially breed again in 2028, further boosting kakapo numbers. They’ve already begun reintroducing kakapo to mainland New Zealand, largely in protected enclosures.
This is, in short, a heartening micro-example of how a single species that is truly on the brink of extinction can be examined, supported, and become a success story. And don’t think that the same thing is blatantly impossible for species in the U.S., either, because we already have a more extreme example of the same success story with the California condor.
These condors, which are the largest native bird on the entire continent, came perhaps closer to absolute extinction than any documented species in human history without falling over the edge. In the early 1980s, a combination of habitat loss, poaching, lead poisoning, power line collisions and especially thinning egg shells caused by the now-banned pesticide (thanks to Rachel Carson and 1962’s Silent Spring) DDT led to a global count of California condors that numbered just 22 birds. An incredibly difficult, highly contentious decision was made to physically capture all the surviving condors and hold them in captivity, while desperately researching and attempting to promote breeding. And against all odds, this managed to be successful, as researchers discovered ways to encourage the birds to breed more often in captivity before slowly beginning to reintroduce them to the wilds of California.
AMAZING—a condor flew into Oregon for the first time in 120 years! The critical conservation efforts I’ve supported are working to protect these amazing, endangered birds. I can’t wait to see more condors soar.
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@merkley.senate.gov) 5:32 PM · Jun 8, 2026
Today, there are more than 500 California condors globally, with more than half of those numbers successfully living and breeding in the wild, as far abroad as Arizona, Utah and Mexico. One was recently spotted, in fact, flying into Oregon! It was the first condor seen in the skies of that state for more than 120 years. Americans should be proud of the fact that a national symbol–the largest bird on the continent–was saved through our direct effort to reverse the damage we ourselves wrought.
The question today, of course, is whether such an effort could ever be mounted again for an animal like the California condor, particularly in either Trump presidency or whatever follows in his wake. Trump’s second term in office has been even more aggressively brutish and destructive toward endangered species than his first, to the point that it changed a single word–“harm”–in July in an effort to render the Endangered Species Act more toothless in protecting animals that are at risk. This change effectively opened many habitats that are critical to specific endangered species to human activities such as drilling, mining or farming by arguing that “harming” animals is only possibly through direct action against an individual creature, rather than the extremely obvious damage done by removing that creature’s habitat, nest sites, etc. This has become the admin’s signature move on the subject, opening up protected areas to commercial interests and signing off on projects such as expanded oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which is projected to accelerate the extinction of the critically endangered Rice’s Whale, a species with an estimated 50 specimens left on the planet. Sadly, these whales don’t seem to have the lobby or the populist support that once rallied behind the likes of the California condor. There’s oil to be had!
On some level, governmental persecution of endangered species feels almost like an expectation, regardless of who is in office, thanks to the way American government serves monied interests first and foremost. But this indifference to our impact on the world, or an indifference to the extinction of an entire specific species, also goes right down to the individual level in some cases, and these are the people I can’t help but find truly unconscionable. Look at Florida, for instance, where the endemic scrub jay, native only to that state, is in danger of losing its federally protected status thanks to a lawsuit from a tech bro homeowner who went out and got legal representation from a conservative property rights group backed by ExxonMobil. His argument? The scrub jay can’t qualify for any federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, because federal protections apply to multiple states rather than being able to regulate individual ones, and the scrub jay is only in Florida. He’s arguing, in other words, that the bird is too endangered to be protected by the law, and he’s doing all of this because … he doesn’t want to pay an extra conservation fee for building on land that contains scrub jay habitat. What a guy!
“A young tech entrepreneur who recently moved to Florida got upset when he ran into obstacles while trying to build a house on the habitat for the endangered Florida scrub-jay.
So he filed a lawsuit attempting to strip the bird of its federal protection.”
— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) 7:55 PM · Apr 1, 2026
Against such violent indifference, despair is an understandable reaction. Those of us who still possess souls mourn the passing of unique creatures from the planet, driven by climate change and our own, more direct human actions. But headlines like the above with the kakapo at least hint at the capacity we also have to make a positive difference for a species that would otherwise have vanished. We can make those impacts, at least some of the time, if we care enough to try. But caring enough is the first step.
