Kokako

The K?kako is a species of songbird that lives in forests of New Zealand. This lovely bird is mostly dark grey in plumage, with a bright wattle under the beak. The more common North Island subspecies has a blue wattle.

The two subspecies of the Kokako was once extremely common and widespread across New Zealand. The Kokako has a conservation status of Endangered. The species has suffered great habitat loss, but its biggest threat is due to predation by introduced predators like rats and possums. Captive breeding programs from the New Zealand Department of Conservation and other groups aim to release birds in predator-free zones (including offshore islands) in order to help save the species from extinction.

From IUCN Red List:
The Kokako is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and was last assessed in 2013 by BirdLife International. This species declined very rapidly over the past three generations until the end of the 20th century, thus it qualifies as Endangered. It now has a very small effective population size because intense predation has left many subpopulations with an excess of unpaired males; however, intensive conservation efforts since 1990 that aimed to restore the population to c.1,000 pairs by the year 2020 have resulted in population increases that are more rapid than expected, so this target is set to be raised.