Banner Photo: Julia holding Mr JC You could call Mr JC a zombie kiwi. His transmitter was reporting him dead, but he continued to wander about. This was a big worry, and lengthy previous attempts to find him had failed. But we tried again and eventually tracked him down and replaced his faulty transmitter. This… [Read More]

The 2023/24 hatching season has officially started at the Crombie Lockwood Kiwi Burrow, with the arrival of four kiwi eggs. Two eggs came from a kiwi known as “Blew” in the Kaweka Ranges, and two are from a kiwi known as “Plummet” from Maungataniwha. When eggs first arrive at the Burrow, our kiwi keepers ‘candle’… [Read More]

Banner Photo: Checking Huripari’s weight gain Last week, four of us headed off the Kaweka Road to do the first health checks on two new young kiwis named Huripari and Oji. Huripari means cyclone and Oji is the parent company of Pan Pac, a major sponsor for our project. With a nice sunny day, we… [Read More]

Banner Photo: Makino River setup l to r: camera, A24 trap, Steve Allen SA2 trap, an AT220 trap and a DoC 200 trap Pete and Judy gained experience with trail cameras working with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy monitoring endangered species such as Northern Bettongs and Carpenterian Pseudantichinus. So when they set up an AT220 possum… [Read More]

Deb and David Harrington have been busy lately, working in the field on the Save Our Kaweka Kiwi project. On 30 June, they completed marking the Anawhenua stream trapline with blue plastic triangles, along with the 22 proposed trap locations with pink plastic triangles. It’s now all ready for the traps to be installed by… [Read More]

A story from our new trappers: it’s great to have Luke and Joel on the team Banner Photo: Joel in training under Deb’s watchful eye I love the outdoors. So does Joel, my 15-year-old son. As a fisherman, tramper and hunter, I normally want to push on towards the best fishing, the next track, the… [Read More]

Kiwi ‘Camy’ is a very important kiwi to the project as he’s the only monitored kiwi from Maungataniwha still with a transmitter. He’s also the most difficult kiwi to get to and was overdue for a health check and new transmitter. Last week, Deb and David flew in from Bridge Pa with perfect flying conditions…. [Read More]

During the 2022/2023 nesting season, we received funding from the World Wildlife Fund NZ and the Tindall Foundation for rearing from six eggs, and a further funding for four eggs in the 2023/2024 season. Our thanks for their help. The first chick ’Pip’, a female, was released into the Kaweka Forest Park in January 2023…. [Read More]

The fence around the Opuahi crèche is secure again, thanks to super-quick action by Pestproof Fences Ltd. John and Nigel from the company got onto the job immediately, with repairs now complete. We can’t thank them enough. The next stage will be to undertake intensive trapping to remove any pests that may have got inside… [Read More]

Monday 6 March, 2023 DoC Rangers Kahori and Alan did a recce trip on 26 February to see if it was possible to get through to the crèche by road. Eight of us then went in on 2 March to round up the surviving chicks. It was a big day. I don’t think we’d make… [Read More]

Banner Photo: Grant Russell from Stantec holding kiwi chick ‘Stanley’ Meet Stanley, our first chick release for the season. Deb had the pleasure of taking Grant Russell (and son Brodie) from Stantec, together with Reece O’Leary and Angelo from PanPac out to release ‘Stanley’ and ‘Pip’ back into the Kawekas. Stantec has sponsored Stanley under… [Read More]

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 2022-23 season which is from June to March. Although the north island brown kiwi can lay eggs in any month. The chick, Johno Q, was released into the kiwi… [Read More]