ANDREW DIGBY CONSERVATION BIOLOGIST
Andrew Digby began his career as an astronomer before shifting his focus to wildlife conservation.
After years spent studying the skies, he set his sights on a strictly terrestrial creature—the kakapo (pronounced car-car-paw). “It’s really down to Earth,” Digby says of his study species, the world’s only flightless parrot.
Once widespread across New Zealand, kakapo suffered dramatic declines when human settlers arrived. They brought along predators such as cats and stoats that the ground-dwelling birds couldn’t easily evade. Digby works as the scientific advisor to the Kakapo Recovery Program in Invercargill, New Zealand. He is the science leader of the team working to bring this unusual bird back from the brink of extinction.
YOU’VE CALLED THE KAKAPO “A
