The Verheul family, from Dunedin in the southeast of the country, had just finished exploring part of the Kepler Track when a kea — a native New Zealand species — grabbed their GoPro and flew off over woodland.
But one cheeky kea took flight with it, capturing aerial footage of the landscape before settling on some ground and tapping at the gadget repeatedly with its beak.
At one point, the bird can be seen ripping off a chunk of plastic from the camera casing.
Remarkably, the GoPro survived its ordeal — a family member heard the clamor and ran in the direction of the squawking to recover it.
Handily, Verheul told Seven Sharp, the bird had flown in a straight line, so they were able to track it down.
“We just followed the sound, went down there, could see them hanging out in the tree. They’d obviously heard us coming and abandoned the GoPro — and my son, he decided to go check the rocks… and there it was, just sitting there, still filming.”
“I downloaded (the footage) onto my phone… It was amazing. It was totally unexpected.”
The next day, she added, a kea stole a cup from a backpack, too.
CNN has reached out to Verheul for further comment.
