The Edge of Extinction

Television (Full Length) – 1976

The lords of creation have imported ferrets and weasels that prey on all such things that sleep on the ground. As kākāpō cannot be expected to learn in a day what their race had forgotten for thousands of years, the chapter of their history in all likelihood is coming to a close.
– Excerpt from the 1896 journal of conservationist Richard Henry

It's a spectacular and very unusual bird and I feel very warmly towards it, and I'll certainly do everything within my power to save it from extinction...
– Don Merton, leader of the NZ Wildlife Service kākāpō rescue team

It is possible that the female is already extinct. You must understand this is a very, very rare bird: its numbers probably don't exceed about a dozen, certainly not many more than a dozen, and it's on the brink of extinction and it is quite feasible that an imbalance in the sex ratio has handicapped the female and the female may be rarer than the male, if not extinct. But we can't allow ourselves to accept this at this stage.
– Conservationist Don Merton on the paltry number of kākāpō by the mid 1970s

The mountain walls around Milford were the kakapo's last refuge but they became a prison when predators and pests crossed the high passes. Now only man can free the species...
– Narrator Ross Johnston describes the kākāpō's old refuge