Fry making kakapo doco

English wit Stephen Fry on his way to Codfish Island on Monday to film a BBC documentary series about the kakapo. Photo by Mark Carwardine. On the eve of its biggest modern breeding season, the kakapo is set to become one of the major success stories of a documentary series looking at the world's most endangered species.

A four-man BBC team, including presenter Stephen Fry, returned from Codfish Island yesterday after four eventful nights filming the kakapo.

Fry was in Codfish Island to film the series Last Chance to See, which revisits a book on endangered species written by Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy author, Douglas Adams, who died in 2001.

The book, published in 1991, was co-written by zoologist Mark Carwardine, who has reprised his role and returned to check on the progress on the species featured in the book.

While several of the species have become extinct, such as the Yangtze River dolphin, the kakapo has been one of the success stories of the series.

"To some extent, the kakapo is one of evolution's most pitiable errors. On the other hand, there is something in their solemn loveliness.

"When I say kakapo are "evolution's error", it's their complex mating rituals, inability to flee predators and general [sweet] dumbness," Fry wrote in his online blog from the island.

Kakapo Recovery programme manager Deidre Vercoe said the trip had been a successful one for the crew, who witnessed the male kakapo "boom" - a sign the nocturnal parrot was ready to breed.

"Mark [Carwardine] visited the island when the kakapo was on the brink of extinction, so it is pleasing that he has returned with numbers tracking upwards."

It was expected the critically endangered kakapo "would crack the 100 mark for the first time since the 1980s", she said.

Update on Friday, January 9, 2009 at 12:52 by City Parrots

NZ efforts to save kakapo impress zoologist

SCARS AND ALL: Zoologist Mark Carwardine after landing back in Invercargill following four days filming the endangered kakapo on Codfish Island.Efforts to save New Zealand's endangered kakapo were among the most hands-on recovery schemes in the world, a visiting zoologist said yesterday.

British zoologist Mark Carwardine yesterday returned from Codfish Island, having spent the past four days there filming the endangered birds.

Mr Carwardine and a documentary crew from the BBC, including actor Stephen Fry, travelled to the island at the start of the week to get an in-depth look at the kakapo recovery scheme, filmed as part of a BBC documentary called Last Chance to See. The documentary provides a look into the progress of some of the world's most endangered species and comes 20 years after Mr Carwardine and author Douglas Adams travelled to the same locations to view the same animals.

Returning from Codfish Island yesterday, Mr Carwardine, who now sports a series of impressive "kakapo scars" said he was impressed with New Zealand efforts to save the kakapo and said it was one of the most hands-on recovery schemes he had seen.

Experiencing New Zealand's famous four seasons in one day while on the island, Mr Carwardine said the team, which included four crew and a variety of rangers, had accomplished what it had set out to do track the progress of the kakapo.

"We got great footage of Sirocco and lots of good interviews with the rangers and their volunteers," he said.

The rest of the world could learn a lot from the way New Zealand conducted its recovery schemes, and other countries were now starting to take notice of initiatives being conducted in the south, he said.

The team travelled to Queenstown last night and would spend today flying over Fiordland to view what used to be the main home of the kakapo, he said. From there it would be on to the Chatham Islands, before departing for Mexico.

Filming for the documentary, which has already included time in the Amazon, Africa, and Madagascar, would wrap up in April, he said.

The series would air in the UK in September, he said.