A parrot in New Zealand steals a GoPro and films its escape

A parrot in New Zealand steals a GoPro and films its escape

In any case, kea does not have the best reputation in New Zealand: it is considered a kleptomaniac who loves to steal wallets, jewelry and other things that people carelessly leave behind. An alpine parrot stole a GoPro camera and accidentally filmed its flight from the air.

It’s no secret that the inconspicuous New Zealand kea (Nestor notabilis) is an intelligent but deceptive bird: it has been known to mess with sheep, move traffic cones, and steal purses.

One such kleptomaniac stole a GoPro from a family hiking the Kepler Trail in Fiordland National Park on New Zealand’s South Island. The family had parked the camera on the railing of their vacation home to film the keas. But one freaky bird ran right up to the camera and he grabbed it and took it for a ride over the mountainous landscape.

Animal manager and photographer

GoPro filmed the adventure from the air, and the animal director and photographer produced impressive aerial shots of the Alpine region. The camera also caught the parrot landing, which resulted in a close-up of the bird’s face and filmed it chewing on pieces of plastic.

Meanwhile, the family follows the parrot to the ground and manage to retrieve the camera just in time before the bird can do more damage. “We just followed the squeak,” Alex Fairhol told New Zealand’s 7 Sharp. “My son decided to look at some rocks that looked like a good place for a bird to perch.” In fact, the Kia was just sitting there with the camera still filming.

Labor is not uncommon for birds

This procedure is not uncommon for birds, which are said to be exceptionally intelligent. How smart Keas is, researchers now have different studies can prove. For example, New Zealand scientists found that birds consider probability when making decisions. The intelligent mountain parrot is also one of the few animals that can combine different types of information to make judgments. In the animal kingdom, a high level of intelligence has so far only been found in great apes.

During the experiments, the researchers showed the bag two jars with black and orange symbols. The birds were taught that black tokens could be exchanged for a food reward. In the experiment, the Keas then had to choose the jar they thought would give them the best chance of getting a reward.

Experiments on keas show their intelligence

Although the researchers changed the number of black and orange codes on both tractors, keas always chose to be more likely to grab a black code. Also, a second experiment, by placing a barrier in the middle of the jars with different proportions of black and orange symbols at the top and bottom, showed that the birds chose the jar with more black symbols over the barrier. In the final experiment, keas had to choose between two researchers who chose the tokens. One basically took only black tokens, even if there were fewer of them in the jar, while the other chose both colors. Once again, the birds remembered which of the researchers always grabbed a black token.

Last year, the story of kea’s use of personal hygiene items became known. The parrot, which the researchers named Bruce, lives in the Willowbank Wildlife Sanctuary in Christchurch. The kea was found in the wild as a young bird in 2013, badly injured – the entire upper half of its beak was missing. Researchers studying the bird’s behavior found that Bruce overcame his disability by finding a pebble to take care of himself. Feather cleaning is important for birds to remove dust particles, dirt, and parasites.

Birdlife has been hit hard in New Zealand

An estimated 3,000 to 7,000 kilos still live in the wild in New Zealand. Parrots have a bad reputation, especially among farmers, because they keep attacking sheep and ripping large chunks of meat off their backs with their powerful beaks. Between the 1860s and 1870s, the New Zealand government encouraged farmers to hunt the birds and paid rewards for dead kyats. About 150,000 were shot for it. The bird was not officially protected until 1986.

Basically, New Zealand’s birdlife has been badly damaged: in addition to the nimble kea, there are also the kiwi and the flightless kakapo. Like the kea, their numbers have been severely depleted since humans settled New Zealand about 700 years ago. Over the centuries 70 bird species have become extinct, 30 percent of the still living species are now threatened. According to a study published in August 2019 in the journal “Current BiologyThe publication, it will take 50 million years for New Zealand’s birdlife to fully replenish.