Our data story examines the recovery and conservation of the kākāpō population in New Zealand, run by the Department of Conservation in consultation with the Ngāi Tahu, the original custodians of the species. The kākāpō is a critically endangered species, with only around 250 birds alive today, living on predator-free islands in New Zealand. At its lowest, the population had dropped to 51 in 1995 and was gradually increased through various measures including:
● Intensive monitoring (transmitter tracking and nest monitoring)
● Regular health checks
● Predator control
● Supplementary feeding,
● Artificial incubation and hand rearing
Our intention with this project was to contribute to the awareness of the significance of this population’s recovery, not only for the cultural and local importance of the kākāpō itself but also as an act of natural conservation in general. In an age of growing concern around climate change and its impact on natural life, understanding that there is hope for recovery as long as the right measures are taken at the right time, is a sentiment that we would like to emphasize. We were interested in learning how long it took to bring about this change, what the catalysts were in terms of organizing the efforts to recover this species and why these efforts were necessary to begin with.
Based on the population data we found, we mapped increases and decreases against noteworthy events in the corresponding years that impacted the population of the kākāpō and where they were located. This provided the greatest degree of information and formed the focal point of our narrative, by creating not just a quantitative timeline, but correlating it to qualitative changes as well, such as the eradication of predators on certain islands, or a particularly successful breeding season. However, we also wanted to highlight why the kākāpō specifically were in such danger and unable to survive naturally in the wild, and so we identified birds like the kiwi and weka, that have similar traits like coloring, weight, ability to fly (or lack thereof) and introduced predators. We found that the breeding seasons and frequency were drastically different for the kākāpō, which in combination with its low fertility rate and genetic diversity, made it much harder for that species to survive, in comparison to the other two birds.
Our final visualisation was created in Adobe Illustrator. The main bubble chart, population graph and breeding frequency graph were all created with the help of Flourish. Presented above is a mockup to help visualize the scale and setting of our visualization. Certain aspects of the mural, like the text placement and size, the color scheme and the proportions were designed keeping this final outcome in mind.