Death of kea will remain a mystery after family disposes of birds' bodies

Tuesday, 7 August 2018

Kea Casper and Stumpy were found dead in their aviary on Saturday morning less than 24 hours after DOC staff took blood and examined the birds.

The bodies of two captive kea found dead the day after a visit from Department of Conservation workers have been disposed of - which means how they died may never be known.

A parrot expert said having them in a cage with a narrow flight area was akin to putting a person in a prison cell - and the decision to keep them there, long before their death, was 'very sad'.

Kea Conservation Trust co-founder and chairwoman Tamsin Orr-Walker says kea enclosures should be large and challenging.

Casper and Stumpy lived in an aviary owned by Ron Stewart and his daughter-in-law Diana Stewart, at a property at Darfield, Canterbury.

The alpine parrots had been with the Stewarts since 1977 and were thought to be about 43-years-old.

A Darfield family asked DOC not to take blood from their two 43-year-old kea, Casper and Stumpy. They did - and the birds were found dead less than 24 hours later.

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Ron Stewart and his daughter-in-law Diana Stewart are upset at the death of 43-year-old kea Casper and Stumpy.

Ron Stewart said he found them dead on the floor of the aviary on Saturday. A day earlier, a DOC ranger and vet took blood samples from them, against the family's wishes.

Local DOC manager Andy Thompson apologised and said such deaths following routine health checks are rare.

The late Dawn Stewart, an internationally renowned parrot breeder, with Casper and Stumpy in 1995.

DOC returned to collect the birds to perform necropsies - animal autopsies - but were told to leave. The Stewarts have since confirmed the bodies had been disposed of.

Diana Stewart said the remains were disposed of by the family in a small service on Tuesday as they didn't want DOC 'pulling them apart'.

'We did it together and said a few words, that we wished it could have been different,' she said.

'At least they are still on the property.'

DOC officials examined the birds on Friday as part of efforts to convince the family that the two ageing birds should be rehomed in more suitable facilities.

They were warned in 2012 that their 24 cubic metre aviary did not meet minimum standards of care for captive kea.

The family disagreed, saying they believed a bigger enclosure would kill the birds.

On Tuesday, Kea Conservation Trust co-founder and chairwoman Tamsin Orr-Walker said she was appalled by the conditions they were kept in.

Orr-Walker wrote the official manual on how people should keep the parrots in 2010 after studying captive kea throughout New Zealand.

She told Stuff that small enclosures could lead to abnormal behaviours - pacing back and forth, flying the same route around an aviary, or flicking of the head - that reflect chronic stress.

'I imagine that those birds were fed well, they were watered, they had shelter.

'But having an intelligent, socially complex species which lives in an incredibly complex environment in a 24 cubic metre cage with a concrete floor with a narrow flight area is akin to putting a person in a prison cell.

'When the opportunity came to release these birds in 2012 and come up to the new standards, to deny these birds a better life and to have that complex interaction with their environment I think is very sad.

'I am not saying they didn't care about their kea - clearly they did - there just needs to be a recognition that kea can't be held in these conditions. They suffer as a result.'

But Diana Stewart said the birds had four aviaries they were swapped through, that they were happy and healthy and that DOC had not decided on where they would have been rehoused.

'They were at the stage of life where one bird was showing the other where the food was and where to roost.

'In a large aviary they would have starved to death and freaked - it would have been like having a blind dog in a house and moving the furniture around. Routine is the only thing they understood.'

Thompson said any decision about whether to rehome the birds - DOC's preference - would only have been made after the results of the health tests.

One bird was behaving naturally but the other showed signs of boredom or stress, and Thompson said they should have been able to live in surroundings that were large enough and allowed them to be stimulated.

He apologised to the family, saying: 'If we had thought there was any sort of risk that this health check would have harmed the birds or been able to foresee what happened, there is no way we would have done it.

'If we caused the death of these kea were really regret that and apologise to the Stewarts for the stress that has caused.'

Kea – large, green mountain parrots – are famed for their curiosity and intelligence.

About 60 live in captivity at 20 registered facilities, and since 2012 DOC has rehoused 15 birds to new homes such as Wellington Zoo.