Return of a ‘pretty special K’
Thirteen North Island brown kiwi will be released in the hills above Mākara today, the culmination of years of efforts to eradicate predators and bring the bird back to the capital. reports.
Wellington’s status as an international nature capital takes a huge – and feathery – leap forward today, when 13 North Island brown kiwi are released into a predator-free area in the Mākara hills that is larger than Abel Tasman
National Park.
They are the first of 250 birds to be released on to 23,000 hectares of mostly private land, stretching from Red Rocks in the south to west of Porirua, over the next six years. And they will provide a terrestrial complement to the legions of tūı¯, kākā and kārearea that are now a regular sight in our skies, in no small part due to the establishment of the fenced Zealandia sanctuary in Karori.
‘‘I think the return of kiwi is a pretty special K to add to that list of birds we have collectively brought back to town,’’ says Paul Ward, founder and head of Capital Kiwi Project. ‘‘In
Wellington we have managed to increase our biodiversity, while other capitals around the world are facing a sixth mass extinction.’’
As Capital Kiwi trustee and former Wellington mayor Dame Kerry Prendergast puts it, Wellington is on its way to becoming a huge conservation estate ‘‘that happens to have a capital city in the middle of it’’.
‘‘To be living in a capital city where you have kiwis roaming
. . . where, in time, you’ll be able to hear them, is wonderful.’’
Within a few years Wellingtonians from Ohāriu and Johnsonville to Karori and Island
Bay will be able to experience kiwi in their backyards. ‘‘This will be a capital city where you’ll be able to hear our national bird calling in the night.’’ Kiwi have been extinct in the wild in the region for generations, but their return marks the culmination of four years’ of effort by Capital Kiwi, the Mākara community, conservation groups, public and private landowners, and mana whenua. They have worked together to eradicate the kiwi’s main predator – the stoat – with more than 4500 traps, cleared by locals, landowners, recreational mountainbikers and others who want to support the effort. An adult kiwi, with its big raking claws, can fight off most predator threats. But if left to their own devices in unprotected areas, kiwi chicks have only a 5% chance of surviving to adulthood in the wild, usually being killed before they reach a weight where they can fend off stoats, rats and possums. With more than 800 stoats culled in the Capital Kiwi network since 2018, the land is now ready for kiwi to inhabit. The 13 birds, gifted by Ngāti Hi new ai and torohanga
Kiwi House, were due to be welcomed to Wellington at dawn by local iwi Te Atiawa Taranaki Whānui.
‘‘We are incredibly honoured to be gifted these precious taonga by Ngāti Hinewai, and we’re excited about this relationship with them and about bringing these birds back into our city and into our ngahere [forests],’’ says Kara Puketapu-Dentice, chairperson of Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust, which represents Taranaki Whānui.
The kiwi comprise three pairs – including matriarch Anahera, who has already had 60 offspring, and partner Nouveau – and seven sub-adults ready to find mates.
¯AtO They will be taken to Mākara in the afternoon to be weighed and tagged with transmitters, before being released into specially constructed burrows in the mānuka-covered hills of Shepherd’s Gully on Terawhiti Station. Once night falls, the burrow doors will be opened and the kiwi will be free to check out their new home.
Ward is optimistic the kiwi will thrive. ‘‘Kiwi are tough, resilient, feisty birds once grown,’’ he says. ‘‘Some of our handlers have the scars to show we come off second best in an encounter with a kiwi. You don’t name your rugby league or your army team after a fantail.’’
Of the five species of kiwi, the North Island brown is faring best. Its population now numbers more than 20,000 and is expected to grow by more than 10% over the next three generations.