Outlander gentle with chicks
Talk about walking on eggshells – literally. We use New Zealand’s biggest-selling plug-in vehicle for a special assignment. Rob Maetzig reports.
chilly bins, the bins have to be firmly secured in the back seat using seatbelts, and the eggs have to be facing sideways rather than forward so there is less chance of air cells inside being ruptured. conditioning on its coldest setting.
So we have to admit it was with some trepidation that we got behind the wheel of the Outlander PHEV at the tiny settlement of Pu¯ rangi in eastern Taranaki, and set off to Rotorua.
Maybe we should explain why we were carrying the eggs and the chick in the first place.
The East Taranaki Environment Trust administers a conservation project called Experience Pu¯ rangi, which is working to protect birdlife in a 13,000-hectare area of land made up of 20 per cent private farmland, 6 per cent exotic forest, and 74 per cent indigenous forest.
Happily, the project is proving massively successful. Whereas nationally it is estimated New Zealand’s kiwi population is declining at a rate of 2-3 per cent a year, thanks to ongoing predator control at Experience Pu¯ rangi the kiwi population there is growing at around 10 per cent a year, and it is now estimated there are at least 4500 birds in the area.
This population includes nine special kiwi that carry transmitters on their legs so they can be electronically monitored to keep track of their whereabouts, activities and health.
These transmitters need to be changed every 12 months, and while every effort is made to do this outside of the periods when kiwi are breeding, sometimes circumstances mean it has to happen when the birds are in their burrows, incubating eggs.
This is what had to happen with two of the birds, who have the names Redwood and Kotikara – one because his territory features many redwood trees, and the other because he has white toenails and kotikara is Ma¯ ori for toenail.
And since it is known that once a burrow is disturbed it will immediately be abandoned by the resident kiwi, the two eggs and the chick had to be removed and transported to Rotorua. There, they will now be hatched and the chicks grown to about 1 kilogram weight, then returned to Experience
Pu¯ rangi and released back into the wild.
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is a gentle sort of SUV, one that lends itself to what one reviewer once described as ‘‘considered’’ driving.
That made it ideal for our eggtransporting assignment. We moved the gearshift into drive – and it’s not really a gearshift because the PHEV doesn’t have a proper transmission – and we headed off, leaving it up to the Outlander to work its electronic magic in choosing whether to operate as an EV or as a hybrid.
It does it all so unobtrusively, too. There’s none of the shift shock that can often be experienced with traditional automatic transmissions, the powertrain is nicely quiet with the only real intrusiveness being when the 2.4-litre engine revs up to either feed power into the EV battery pack or to clutch itself into the drive system to give the vehicle a bit more grunt, and the ride feels good without being soft.
We can also report that the Outlander PHEV’s air conditioning system works really well, because by the time we reached Rotorua after close to four hours with it on the coldest setting, we were freezing.
Our precious eggs and chick cargo was delivered safe and sound, though. And as we drove out of Rotorua, we began to speculate what names could be given to the little chick on its return to Pu¯ rangi.
If it’s a male, maybe it could be named Outlander, we thought. And then it was suggested that if it is female, it could be named Evie – in recognition of the special plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that delivered it to the National Kiwi Hatchery.
Now there’s a good idea . . .