NZEALAND-WILDLIFE-CONSERVATION-KAKAPO

TO GO WITH NZealand-wildlife-conservation-kakapo by Neil Sands This photo taken on June 19, 2012 shows a kakapo "sperm helmet" on display at Wellington's Te Papa museum, which was once used by conservation workers in an unsuccessful attempt to harvest semen from New Zealand's rare kakapo parrot. Flightless, slow-moving and at times more sexually attracted to humans than their own species, it's small wonder New Zealand's kakapo parrot is on the verge of extinction. The plump, green kakapo -- the name means "night parrot" in Maori -- was once one of the most common birds in New Zealand, which had few land predators before European settlement in the early Nineteenth Century. (Photo by Neil SANDS / AFP) (Photo by NEIL SANDS/AFP via Getty Images)