 In the 1950s , the New Zealand Wildlife Service was established and began making regular expeditions to search for the kakapo , mostly in Fiordland and what is now the <unk> National Park in the northwest of the South Island . Seven Fiordland expeditions between 1951 and 1956 found only a few recent signs . Finally , in 1958 a kakapo was caught and released in the Milford Sound catchment area in Fiordland . Six more kakapo were captured in 1961 ; one was released and the other five were transferred to the <unk> of the Mount Bruce Bird Reserve near Masterton in the North Island . Within months , four of the birds had died and the fifth died after about four years . In the next 12 years , regular expeditions found few signs of the kakapo , indicating that numbers were continuing to decline . Only one bird was captured in 1967 ; it died the following year . 
