Last Chance to See

answers my next question. It’s the afternoon, yes?”
    “Yes,” said Mark. “It’s about four o’clock and we are expected for tea.”
    I looked up and down the beach again, thunderstruck by this idea.
    “Tea?”
I said.
    “With Mike and Dobby.”
    “Who?”
    “Well, just pretend you know them when we get there, because you spent an hour chatting to them this morning.”
    “I did?”
    “Dobby is the warden of the island.”
    “And Mike?”
    “His wife.”
    “I see.” I thought for a bit. “I know,” I said suddenly. “We’ve come to look for the kakapo. Yes?”
    “Correct.”
    “Will we find one here?”
    “Doubt it.”
    “Then remind me. Why are we here?”
    “Because this is one of the only two places where there are definitely kakapos living.”
    “But we probably won’t find one.”
    “No.”
    “But we will at least get some tea.”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, let’s go and get some. Tell me all about it again on the way. But slowly.”
    “Okay,” said Mark. He took a few last pictures of the little blue penguin, a bird which I was destined never to find out anything more about, packed away his Nikons, and together we set off back to the warden’s lodge.
    “Now that New Zealand is riddled with predators of all kinds,” said Mark, “the only possible refuge for kakapos is on islands—and protected islands at that. Stewart Island, in the south, where one or two kakapos are still found, is inhabited and no longer even remotely safe. Any kakapos that are found there are trapped and airlifted to Codfish Island, which is just nearby. They are studied and protected there. In fact, they are so well protected that there’s a certain amount of doubt at the moment about whether we’ll even be allowed to go there. Apparently there’s some furore going on at DOC about—”
    “DOC?”
    “The New Zealand Department of Conservation. There’s a disagreement about whether to let us go there. On the one hand there’s a feeling that we might do some good by getting some publicity for the project, and on the other there’s a feeling that the birds should not be disturbed on any account. There’s only one person available who could help us find the bird and he doesn’t want to take us at all.”
    “Who is he?”
    “A freelance kakapo tracker called Arab.”
    “I see.”
    “He has a kakapo-tracking dog.”
    “Hmm. Sounds like the sort of person we need. Is there a lot of work for freelance kakapo trackers? I mean, there aren’t a lot of kakapos to track, are there?”
    “Forty. In fact, there are three or four kakapo trackers—”
    “And three or four kakapo-tracking dogs?”
    “Exactly. The dogs are specially trained to sniff out the kakapos. They wear muzzles so that they won’t harm the birds. They’ve been used to trap the kakapos on Stewart Island so that they can then be airlifted to Codfish Island and here to Little Barrier Island by helicopter. First time any of the species have flown at all for thousands, perhaps millions, of years.”
    “What does a kakapo tracker do when there aren’t any kakapos that need tracking?”
    “Kills cats.”
    “Out of frustration?”
    “No. Codfish Island was infested with feral cats. In other words, cats that have returned to the wild.”
    “I always think that’s an artificial distinction. I think all cats are wild cats. They just act tame if they think they’ll get a saucer of milk out of it. So they kill cats on Codfish Island?”
    “Killed them. Every last one. And all the possums and stoats. Anything that moved and wasn’t a bird, essentially. It’s not very pleasant, but that’s how the island was originally, and that’s the only way kakapos can survive—in exactly the environment that New Zealand had before man arrived. With no predators. They did the same here on Little Barrier Island too.”
    At that moment something happened which I found a little startling, until I realised that it had already happened once that day, only in my befuddled jet-lagged state I had completely forgotten about it.
    Coming from the beach, we had trudged through thick undergrowth and along rough muddy tracks, across a couple of fields full of sheep, and suddenly emerged into a garden. Not just a garden, but a garden that was meticulously mown and manicured, with immaculate flower beds, well-kempt trees and shrubs, rock gardens, and a little stream with anatty little bridge over it. The effect was that of walking into a slightly suburban