The kea population has declined 50-80% over the last 3 generations, or 36 years, largely due to persecution, and continues to decline rapidly.

As opportunistic, generalist omnivorous foragers, kea are primary, secondary, and higher-level consumers and only compete with the kaka for food resources.

After a female kea initiates copulation by inviting play or being submissive, the male will feed her a regurgitated meal before mounting.

The kea’s diet varies by season as it feeds on plants during flowering seasons and relies on trash heaps, flesh, and bone marrow in the winter when foods are scarce.

Kea have decurved upper bills, or culmens, and females have shorter, less curved culmens.

Kea have a polygynous mating system in which males fight for dominance to become part of the 10% that is allowed to breed in certain years.

Kea are diurnal and call and forage in the morning, roost in the middle of the day, and forage again before sleeping in the trees.

Kea are colorful birds with bronze olive-green bodies, dull blue primaries, red-orange coverts, and a dull red lower back.

Due to a life in an extreme alpine environment, kea are encouraged to opportunistically and inquisitively explore their surroundings and will commonly investigate and destroy human belongings.

Kea are opportunistic, generalist, omnivorous foraging parrots that rely on the leaves, buds, and nuts of southern beeches as an important part of their diet.