Magic Marlborough Sounds ideal crèche for world’s rarest kiwi

Six of the world’s rarest kiwi chicks will grow big enough “kick a stoat in the face” in their new home in the Marlborough Sounds.

Transporting the young rowi kiwi on Tuesday to the predator-free Motuara Island “crèche” was Iain Graham, the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity project leader, who said it would give the feathered national taonga a fighting chance of survival.

Graham said the 3-month-old chicks weighed only around 800g at present and, at such a small size, they were pretty vulnerable to stoat predation, back in their native Westland habitat.

“These guys (the kiwi) will spend around the first year of their lives out here, and in that time they’ll grow to between 1200g and 1500g before we re-release them back into Ōkārito,” Graham said.

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“At that weight they are pretty much stoat-proof and will be able to defend themselves from a stoat attack.

“They’ll take about a year to grow to that stoat-proof weight, so they’re really slow to mature.”

The project to temporarily rehome the chicks on Motuara Island was a collaboration between Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch, DOC, Picton’s E-Ko Tours and local iwi Te Atiawa as part of the Nationwide Operation Nest Egg.

Paul Keating, owner-operator of E-Ko Tours that provided DOC with transport to the island crèche, said they had been involved with the project for well over a decade, and had witnessed more than 700 rowi kiwi successfully reintroduced back to their native homeland after spending time on Motuara.

“It’s been a real success story and a real community project, and Te Atiawa have been great, and heavily involved,” Keating said.

“It’s the magic of the Marlborough Sounds, everything seems to relax, chill out, breed and thrive here – it’s ideal for them.

“They stay here until they’re big enough and strong enough to kick a stoat in the face.”

Graham said the six chicks taken to the crèche had hatched at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, and were each given a name – Tiare (beauty/loved one), Rīrā (to have strength/be strong), Māika (quiet manner), Maminga (crafty/cunning), Āwheo (halo), and Bugsy.

This made things a lot easier when out in the bush monitoring the birds, he said.

“They get an I.D code based on the year that they hatched, and their parents’ breeding code, which is just numbers and letters,” he said.

“Then they are given their name … mainly just for us to decrease the amount of transcription errors we might get.

“If I’m out here dealing with 30 birds, and they’re all called ‘UB22.23. Number 1’, or ‘UB22.23. Number 3’, mistakes can happen.”

Each bird would then be fixed with a transmitter that would help Graham and his team track the kiwi down every six to eight weeks, to give them regular health checks.

Graham said once the nocturnal birds were released on the island they would usually spend the day resting before exploring further after nightfall and making themselves at home.

“The juveniles will just day roost under foliage, and then they’ll disappear in their own way and dig an actual burrow or go into a hollowed log or a natural root plate that has lifted up,” he said.