When the Weekly catches up with Auckland Zoo vet nurse and clinical coordinator Mikaylie Wilson, it’s already been a busy morning at the zoo’s hospital. An otter is arriving from Taiwan and a kiwi has unexpectedly been admitted after losing weight.
“That’s just the way it runs and we go with whatever is needed at the time,” says Mikaylie, 47.
Originally from Australia, Mikaylie brings 26 years’ experience in zoos and joined Auckland Zoo in 2012, drawn to its diverse range of work.
One day, she’s assisting with a rhino anaesthetic or treating sick wildlife, then the next, she’s on a remote predator-free island, hand-rearing critically endangered kākāpō chicks. Since moving to New Zealand for the zoo job, she has regularly assisted the Department of Conservation’s Kākāpō Recovery Programme on Whenua Hou and Pukenui islands in the deep south of the country.
The work is physically demanding, often involving long nights checking nests and trekking through thick bush with telemetry gear – specialist radio tracking equipment used to locate the rare birds hidden deep in the forest.
“Catching them in the wild is quite a skill – you try and stalk really quietly because they’re camouflaged so well,” explains Mikaylie, who sometimes needs to give chase if the birds bolt.
“It’s hard work trying to run with a backpack on, carrying telemetry gear in thick bush, sometimes tangled up in supplejack or spiky mānuka.”
Protecting Aotearoa’s rarest birds
But for Mikaylie, helping save the large, flightless parrots makes every challenge worthwhile.
She enthuses, “I love seeing the fresh little chicks in the nest when we’re doing the chick checks at night, while mum leaves the nest. Seeing them go from these little fluff balls to really charismatic, goofy fledglings is amazing.”
One unforgettable moment from the most recent summer breeding season involved transferring chicks by helicopter from Whenua Hou, west of Stewart Island, to Pukenui, in the Dusky Sound in Fiordland, after natural food shortages left some birds struggling.
Touching down in the helicopter and scrambling to her designated nest, Mikaylie was tasked with introducing her chick to Waikawa, a well-known mother kākāpō in the breeding programme.
“She’s a bit of a grumbler and I was trying to place the chick in so she wouldn’t attack it. There was another chick in the nest already, so I pushed them together.”
A successful rescue
Mikaylie returned 20 minutes later to find the surrogate chick safely snuggled up with Waikawa.
“She’s such a good mum and had both tucked in under her,” she smiles.
“It’s super special to be able to rescue these chicks.”
Over her career, Mikaylie has helped rear everything from golden lion tamarins and a pygmy hippo, to a white rhino, flamingos, wombats and koalas, making her ideally suited to the high-pressure work. But even with so much experience, one kākāpō emergency this year had her heart racing.
Inside the filming of Wild Heroes
While filming for Three series Wild Heroes, which follows Auckland Zoo’s professionals as they help animals inside the zoo and in the wild, Mikaylie was on incubation duty when she found herself acting as an impromptu kākāpo midwife.
“I helped with an emergency hatch assist and ended up having to hatch it myself,” recalls Mikaylie.
In charge of monitoring two eggs, which had issues with their CAM, the equivalent of a placenta, Mikaylie watched in awe as one egg managed to hatch. But the other was visibly struggling.
“I could actively see its breathing and pushing to get out of the egg was reducing,” she explains.
With an incubation specialist on the phone talking her through it, Mikaylie was in her element.
“Wild Heroes captured all of it, but I’m not sure how I will look on camera because I was a bit stressed,” she admits.
“The umbilical cord was bleeding and I didn’t have enough hands, so the sound guy was helping hold the camera up while the camera guy ran to get the vet. “Afterwards, I was just beaming. It was a career highlight and I was able to save the chick.”
The biggest reward is seeing the remarkable recovery of the species in real time. When Mikaylie first started working with kākāpō in 2013, there were only 125 birds alive. Today, thanks to years of intensive conservation work, there are now around 235 adults and a record number of 106 chicks hatched this season.
“I just love being able to contribute to conservation in a meaningful way through the jobs we do,” she enthuses.
“A lot of people don’t realise how much conservation work we do both in the zoo and in the wild throughout Aotearoa.”
Watch Wild Heroes Sundays at 7pm on Three and ThreeNow.
