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Kea vs. dog toys, puzzle boxes and Doctor Who monsters
Clio Reid
When people ask me about the research I’m doing, their reactions generally fall into the following categories: “A parrot...that attacks sheep?”, “I thought that was a myth!”, “Do they still do that?”, and “Wow, that sounds like a fun project!” If you haven’t already guessed, I’m studying kea strike (like fly strike, but with parrots), a phenomenon where kea attack sheep in the high country. This research is for my doctoral degree at Massey University, and it involves several components. First, I visited five high country sheep stations with known histories of kea strike in Wakatipu to look at the prevalence of kea strike injuries in sheep. I’ve also been conducting a survey of high country sheep farmers to get an idea of their experiences with kea on their farms and their attitudes towards kea. Another project involves collecting data from the historic records of kea strike. Finally, I’ve been investigating behaviours that may underlie kea strike, such as how innovative problem-solving, personality and social behaviour in kea are linked to kea attacks on sheep. It’s this part of my research that I’ll go into here.
Figure 1. A kea with one of the novel objects (a sturdy dog toy attached to a wooden board with a length of chain). The kea liked to turn over the wooden base, so it had to be weighed down with rocks. They like turning over the rocks, too. Photo: Clio Reid
severe injury from kea strike but survive never fully recover, even with the use of antibiotics.) Due to the impact of kea strike on high country sheep farming from the 1860s, a bounty for kea was initiated and lasted approximately 100 years. An estimated 150,000 kea were killed during the bounty period and, although now a fully protected species, kea are still perceived by some people as pests and are still persecuted. Kea are long-lived and slow to reproduce, and therefore the bounty program will have had a considerable impact on the kea population. Although kea strike is an ongoing problem, little scientific study has been carried out on it, and much of the existing material is out of date (eg. George Marriner’s book, The Kea: A New Zealand Problem, published in 1908) or anecdotal. The behaviours underlying kea strike remain unknown. The aim of this part of my study is to examine these behaviours to better understand kea strike, and therefore contribute to better mitigation for the benefit of kea conservation and high country sheep farming. Historic persecution contributed to kea’s current
Kea Strike Background
Kea strike can result in injury, illness, and sometimes death of the sheep that are attacked. This problem has been known since the 1860s, and despite the adoption of husbandry techniques such as vaccination of sheep against blood poisoning (malignant oedema caused by Clostridium sp.), and keeping sheep in pasture below 700 m elevation during winter (where possible), some high country sheep stations still experience kea strike although generally in low numbers and often only sporadically. However, a few farmers still report high incidences of kea strike with losses of several hundred sheep per year, despite vaccinating their sheep. (It has been reported that sheep that sustain