Kiwi Couple Fitted With Transmitters

A “missing” mating pair of western North Island brown kiwi has been found in the King Country and fitted with radio transmitters as part of a project aimed at helping endangered birds survive in the wild.

And during the expedition to find the two kiwi last week, calls from a third bird were heard, raising hopes that another male kiwi is in the area.

Last week’s search by Otorohanga Zoological Society volunteers at the remote Paparahia Station was part of the King Country Kiwi Survey,

The project has received a $5000 grant from Environment Waikato for its work across the region.

The society aims to find all western North Island brown kiwi remaining in the wild in the King Country, fit them with transmitters, and then either support them in the wild or transfer them to managed predator-free sites such as Maungatautari.

The male of the Paparahia pair had been fitted with a transmitter but lost it last year and attempts to find the birds since then were unsuccessful.

Society president and survey co- ordinator Nancy Jensen said it was very satisfying to have located the birds last week.

The volunteers and specialist dog handler James Fraser, using kiwi tracking dog Percy, tracked them down.

The transmitters will allow the society to monitor the male and female pair far more easily.

“If the decision is made that, for their own safety, they need to be removed to a predator-free, predator-managed site, then it’s easy to locate them,” Mrs Jensen said.

She was also pleased that some of the search team had heard another male in the area, because the present pair had not been producing fertile eggs.

“The fact that we’ve found another male probably presents us with a very strong case to remove the male that we have put the transmitter on to another site to allow the female to pair up with that other male, and maybe we will get some fertile eggs,” she said.

Environment Waikato’s natural heritage programme manager Kevin Collins said helping to save western North Island brown kiwi from extinction in the King Country was one of the council’s most concrete contributions to biodiversity protection in the region.

“The long-term vision is that once birds at Maungatautari start to breed there will be surplus juvenile birds that can be released to other sites within the region,” Mr Collins said.

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