Arthur's Pass kiwi survive!
Date: 28 February 2008
Arthur's Pass villagers have this week met for the first time the most secretive members of their community - kiwi they hear calling every night, but never see.
Contractor James Fraser with his tracking dog "Percy" and local volunteers have been clambering around the Arthur's Pass mountain-sides and in two days have found four roroa - including one chick.
In fact the best find was only two hours into the first day, when Percy led James and the volunteers found a burrow containing both male and female adult kiwi, together with a young 500gm chick.
Arthur's pass locals Wayne Costello
with chick "Murdoch", Steve Lassche
with adult female roroa and Melanie
Nelson with adult male roroa
Steve Lassche a volunteer on the team that day, couldn't believe his eyes, as one after another kiwi was taken from the burrow.
"I've been in Arthur's Pass for years and never thought I'd ever get to see one of these guys, let alone have the chance to hold onto one," he said.
"Man they're big!"
James too was surprised by the find.
"It's not that common to find both adult birds sharing the same burrow, but to find a chick as well is something really special. I think there may only ever have been four roroa chicks found in the wild," he said.
The team placed egg-timer transmitters on both adult birds which will enable the community volunteers to monitor when the birds breed again.
The chick was considered to still be at risk from predation and so the decision was made to bring it off the mountain, to raise it in captivity by the New Zealand Conservation Trust at Willowbank, until its weight reaches 1000 to 1200 grams.
Wayne Costello of DOC said, "when the chick, named "Murdoch", reaches this size it will be able to defend itself against its worst predator - the stoat."
"Murdoch the chick will be released in the same area it was taken from in about two months time," he said.
"Nothing much is known about kiwi that live in and around Arthur's Pass village," said Wayne Costello.
"All we do know is that they are great spotted kiwi or roroa - the biggest of our kiwi species. Residents have always heard kiwi calls from their beds at night but no one ever sees these elusive birds in the wild."
Thanks to funding from Bank of New Zealand Save the Kiwi Trust, community volunteers have been able to put in thousands of hours over the past four years trapping predators and controlling possums in the hope that the local great spotted kiwi / roroa population would continue to survive.
"Until now, no one has really known whether any of this work has paid off," said Wayne Costello.
"With the additional find of a juvenile bird on the second day of searching we are now quite optimistic that all the hard work over the last few years has paid off."
Searching the rugged mountain sides in Arthur's Pass continues today and community volunteers are hopeful they will be able to find the target of five pairs of roroa throughout the valley. Community members monitoring the local roroa population over the last few years believe that around 16 to 18 birds live within range of their alpine village homes.