SOKK Website

Environment, Conservation and Outdoor Education Trust

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  • The SOKK Project
    • Monitoring and health checks: How it’s done
    • Predator trapping: Our major targets
    • The kiwi crèche at Opouahi
    • Biodiversity in the kiwi crèche
  • Stories
  • Our whanau
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    • Our history
  • Education
    • SOKK as a classroom of the outdoors
    • Kiwi talks at the crèche
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    • Trapline catches – latest
    • Kiwi crèche update
    • Nester status – latest
  • USEFUL LINKS
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The SOKK Project

SOKK is focused on the Kaweka Forest Park, situated in the central North Island between Hawke’s Bay and Taupo. It contains a mixture of beech forest, kanuka and manuka scrub with pockets of podocarp forest and alpine tussock at higher altitudes.

SOKK is run by the Environment, Conservation and Outdoor Education Trust (ECOED), which  was established in 2002 to halt the decline of North Island brown kiwi in the Kaweka Forest Park.

At that time, the park’s estimated kiwi population was about 200 kiwi. In response to this crisis, ECOED initiated the Save the Kiwi Hawke’s Bay Project, which is now known as Save Our Kaweka Kiwi (SOKK).

Our goal is to restore a healthy population of kiwi in the Kaweka Forest Park by:

  • Maintaining and expanding our local kiwi population
  • Using kiwi preservation to promote environmental education
  • Seeing the Kaweka Forest Park restored to a safe and healthy environment for kiwi and other native flora and fauna to thrive

In the park, SOKK has established a core breeding population of male kiwi that can be monitored. By checking the data outputs from transmitters attached to the males, we can tell if a kiwi is nesting and, later, if chicks have hatched. When chicks are ten days old, the nest is raided and chicks taken to the kiwi crèche at Lake Opouahi Scenic Reserve for rearing. When funds permit, we are also able to incubate recovered eggs.

Each tagged adult kiwi is also given a health check twice a year, whilst juvenile kiwis returned into the park are monitored every six weeks until they reach 1400g. At that weight, they are classified as adult kiwi.

The project has been involved in a range of other innovations, including:

  • trialling of transmitters when the original monitoring software was changed from analogue to digital
  • trialling new ways of attaching transmitters to kiwi, and
  • testing the effectiveness of predator trapping methods.

We have also collected feather and blood samples from our kiwi to be used in kiwi genetic studies, and have developed ways of dealing with kiwi health within the crèche environment.

 

Stories

New kids on the hill

Banner Photo: Grant Russell from Stantec holding kiwi chick 'Stanley'Meet Stanley, our first chick release for the season. Deb had the pleasure of … Read More

Wow, a kiwi chick

Johno, our superhero kiwi in the Kaweka Forest Park, produced a kiwi chick and an egg (subsequently incubated at Westshore) in his first clutch of the … Read More

Stoats galore?

Thursday 26 January 2023Te Puia, (TP1- TP9) DOC250 traps, Hot Springs – Te Puia (370 – 411, DOC200, and CT13), Mangatainoka (W1-W15) Double … Read More

Johno’s fading signal leads to a double surprise

Banner Photo: Johno S and JohnoT in their transportation carrier for the ride to the kiwi crèche.Fiona and Robyn received a message from Deb … Read More

MTT help with grass maintenance at the kiwi crèche

It was great to have Justin and his Jobs for Nature crew from Maungaharuru Tangitu Trust come to clear the lake track at the Opouahi kiwi … Read More

About us

The Environment, Conservation and Outdoor Education Trust (ECOED) was established in 2002 to halt the decline of North Island brown kiwi in the Kaweka Forest Park. At that time, the estimated kiwi population was about 200. In response to the crisis, ECOED initiated the Save the Kiwi Hawke’s Bay Project, which is now known as Save Our Kaweka Kiwi, or SOKK.

Our goal is to restore a healthy population of kiwi in the forest park.

Do you want to help?

From marketing and fundraising to trapping and kiwi monitoring, we'll be able to find a way for you to help.

Get Involved

Email: [email protected]
Lake Opouahi, Hawke’s Bay

Major sponsors

MAJOR SPONSORS

Copyright © 2023 · ECOED is a registered charitable entity in terms of the Charities Act 2005. · Registration No. CC27154 · Website by D2 ·