This Amazing Dog Helps to Save Endangered Parrots | Short Film Showcase

This is Ajax, and I've trained him to help me find kea nests. He's the only kea dog in the country, and I guess that means the world. People are really shocked when you tell them that there are less kea than there are kiwis. I've been training Ajax since he was a pup; he walks around the forest all day with me. He hops in helicopters, he comes on boats, he's been caving. Yeah, he comes everywhere with me.

He's got a good keen nose, and he's able to let me know if there's a kea close by or if there's one still in the hole. He'll indicate by standing there quite awkwardly with his nose directly in the hole. It's really sad when you come across a kea nest that you've been monitoring and watching the chicks grow, and all of a sudden, you get there and they’re gone. And you know they haven't fledged because it's too early, and you know they've been predated by some pest.

Yeah, it gets you down because you think about that happening in hundreds of kea nests every year all across the South Island. It does make you think, can we win this battle? Good boy, good boy! That's a perfect indication, that's the best you've done! I want people to look at keas as an important species that we have here in the South Island of New Zealand.

And I want stories like this about me and Ajax to make people aware of how neat and special they are. Working to conserve an endangered species is really rewarding; every day's an adventure. And it's helping the world in my little corner of the globe.