Talk:South Island kōkako

IUCN Status
I would just like to note that I think the current IUCN status for Callaeas cinereus being Endangered is based off of the now invalid classification of this species and C. wilsoni being synonymous. This would make wilsoni the species listed as Endangered while cinereus proper would be either Data Deficient or Not Evaluated. (BronxZooFan (talk) 16:02, 4 April 2016 (UTC))
 * Quite right! I have fixed it for both; the current IUCN status for C. cinerea still seems to be "extinct" though. Happy to update it if anyone can point to a source. Although it's recognised as "data deficient" under the NZTCS, the Wikipedia template for showing threat status in the taxobox doesn't recognise DD as a value. We may be stuck with waiting until the IUCN updates (and recognises its species status, and spells its name according to the NZ Checklist...) Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 18:39, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Feather
I just asked Colin Miskelly, Curator of Terrestrial Vertebrates at Te Papa, about the supposed kakapo feather mentioned in the NZ Forestry 1995 reference. He was involved in the examination of the feather, and said that it came from a blackbird, but that the result was never published. I cannot find a source suitable for citing on Wikipedia to back that up, and a pers. comm. is not acceptable, so will just leave the explanation here and wait for brighter wiki-minds than mine to figure out a way to reference the statement. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 23:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Personal blogs can be accepted as sources when written by experts in the respective field (Wp:Citing self-published blogs). So I guess if you or Miskelly mentioned this fact in a blog or podcast, that it could be cited. FunkMonk (talk) 04:26, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, that could work. Colin writes plenty of posts on Te Papa's blog, so I could suggest to him he write something about the kokako and mention the feather. If not, I guess I'll have to do it, though that seems an oddly roundabout way of following Wikipedia's "no experts" stricture! Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 07:52, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, just to be absolutely certain, perhaps ask at the coi noticeboard: FunkMonk (talk) 08:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)