Birds behaving badly

22/01/2018

They are known to be cheeky, comical and intelligent.

New Zealand’s native bird, the Kea, aptly nicknamed 'The Clever Clown of the Alps', found local fame after they were caught on film moving road cones in November 2016 in Fiordland National Park.

Downer recently swooped in to help keep the endangered bird safe, as well as to prevent them from damaging vehicles and equipment.

Our Te Anau team for the Milford Road Alliance and our ITS team, joined forces with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, the Kea Conservation Trust and the University of Canterbury to create a ' bird gym' for the Kea. The gym has been designed to keep them intellectually engaged and is equipped with ladders, spinning flotation devices, swings and climbing frames, which they can play with (or take apart) to distract them from danger and causing damage.

We're also monitoring the gym with cameras so researchers at the University of Canterbury can analyse their behaviour and develop new ways of interacting with the birds.

So far, the cheeky and inquisitive Kea may have lost a little bit of interest in the gym but it is still early days. On the other wing, we've heard the gym has been attracting tourists too.....

We're Kea-urious (see what we did there) to see whether these clever birds continue to use their new gym....and whether it will prevent more road cone moving antics as in the footage below.