Evan

Evan the kea was found on July 10th 2020 at the Otira Viaduct Lookout carpark with a whole circus of other first-year kea fledglings . A member of the public reported in to the local DOC office that they'd spotted a kea with a broken leg hanging out here so the team went out right away to check, and sure enough found this poor kea limping around with a severely damaged leg, and being pecked by some of the others. His flight was still strong, and his profile photo here shows the exquisite colours under his wings. Evan the kea is named after the son of our wonderful kea radio-tracking pilot who contributes to kea conservation in a unique and special way! For many of the kea that have received chelation treatment at the Wildlife Hospital over the past few years for lead poisoning, we have attached radio-transmitters on some of them to follow their fate once they've been released back into the mountains and to date they are all alive and well, thriving in their lead-free state in the Arthur's Pass mountains! We check on these birds every month from the plane alongside other research undertaken by DOC. Evan was in the good hands of the wonderful folks at the South Island Wildlife Hospital for two months from July-Aug 2020. Dr Pauline, our caring vet, and her capable team performed surgery on Evan's severely broken leg and he made a good recovery. He was released in the wild and radio tracked for the next three months, alive and well. However, in November 2020 we received a mortality signal for him from the plane during our month radio tracking flight, meaning him or his transmitter stopped moving. We went to follow up on foot and unfortunately Evan was found dead in the forest. It is likely his injuries and time spent in captivity during a crucial period of his learning and development of skills like foraging for wild foods meant that he could not survive on his own in the wild. This is the sad reality for many kea when they come into contact with human areas. They are affected by human foods, vehicles, lead poisoning and a suite of other things and unfortunately many kea have succumbed to injury or death over the years in these places.