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Kea diet
Kea eat a wide variety of food in the wild.
Studies have shown that kea eat over 200 different varieties of natural foods including a wide range of animal and plant matter.
Kea foods include:
- grasshoppers
- beetles (adults and larvae)
- ant larvae
- weta and cicada nymphs
- other invertebrates
- the roots, bulbs, leaves, flowers, shoots, seeds, nectar and fruit of over 200 native plant species.
Kea have also been recorded eating other bird and mammal species including: Hutton’s Shearwater (chicks and eggs), racing pigeon, sheep meat and bone marrow, as well as stoat and possum carcasses.
Kea can also eat fat from the carcasses of hunted introduced mammals such as tahr, deer and chamois. Kea have been known to attack the fatty area around the kidneys of live sheep left in alpine areas above 600m during winter when food resources are low.
Kea are one of the few species which have managed to take advantage of people moving into their habitat. They use their beak, intelligence and curiosity to access resources and investigate any potential uses of new objects. Rubbish dumps and bins, farms and ski fields provide useful sources of food and sometimes toxins for kea.
Kea have adapted to eat just about any food and take advantage of any food left behind by people.
People should not feed kea as it encourages them to become scavengers.
Historical burn-off of high country forests by farmers, and continued legal burning of these areas between June and October have decreased the availability of natural food sources for kea in the high country. How exactly this affects kea is unknown. Research shows that in the past, lack of food has been a major cause of kea death.
Complete the Kea diet quiz >
Discuss the impact that you think people have had on kea and how kea have adapted to the arrival of people in Aotearoa New Zealand.