Kiwi facts

Active by night, a prodder of forest floor for insects, the kiwi is to New Zealand as the hedgehog is to Europe, with one crucial difference. The hedgehog enjoys a high-speed lifestyle, while the kiwi lives much longer, eats much less, and reproduces much more slowly.

Alone among birds in having a nose at the end of its beak, and notable for laying eggs up to one-fifth of their body weight, the kiwi is unlike any other bird on Earth.

In some varieties, the egg is incubated for 80 days by the male alone, during which time he loses up to 20 per cent of his body weight. The chick hatches fully feathered and within five days is ready to get on with life. While still juvenile, it strikes off on its own, often walking great distances to find a territory.

Until it reaches 1kg at about six months old, the young kiwi is at the mercy of any hungry stoat or cat. From about that time, the kiwi can defend itself against stoats but not roaming dogs or ferrets.

All going well, kiwi reach sexual maturity at 2-4 years of age, and then the courtship game begins. On a spring night after dark, the calls of male kiwi and the females' answering calls may be heard in kiwi areas. A pair of kiwi may produce up to 100 eggs in a lifetime of 50 years or more.

North Island brown kiwi, 4 varieties: estimated pop. 25,000

North Island brown kiwi, Rotorua

For many New Zealanders, this is the kiwi we think of. It's the one that lives closest to human habitation, familiar to many communities in Northland, Bay of Plenty, East Coast/Hawke's Bay and parts of Taranaki, and is the main species on display in captivity.

The North Island brown is a faster breeder than other kiwi, producing up to two eggs a clutch and 1-2 clutches a year, as opposed to the more usual one egg every year in South Island varieties. On the down side, stoats are a permanent issue in North Island forests. Where not managed, kiwi numbers are halving every 15 years.

In the kiwi sanctuaries, by contrast, stoat control has been so effective that many more chicks survive than are needed to allow populations to recover. But this success is being undermined (in parts of Northland in particular) by roaming dogs. The solution is easy in principle - a change in attitude among dog owners - and is a goal for DOC community relations work in affected areas.

Little spotted kiwi

Little spotted kiwi, estimated pop. 1,425

The smallest and once the commonest kiwi is vulnerable to stoats at all stages of its life cycle. The little spotted is now restricted to several predator-free offshore islands and the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. While their numbers are expanding offshore, the potential for mainland restoration is limited, currently, to fenced-off areas like Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. They used to live in parts of the North Island, the West Coast of the South Island and Fiordland.

Great spotted kiwi, Hurunui

Great spotted kiwi (roroa), estimated pop. 17,000

The giant among kiwi (whence the Ngai Tahu name, roroa), this turkey-sized bird lives in mountainous areas of the northern South Island. Its strongholds are in Kahurangi National Park, the Paparoa Range, and the beech forests of inland Canterbury. Trampers on the Heaphy Track may have heard the roroa's trilling call after nightfall, or the sound of them rustling through the bush.

Roroa have been released into Rotoiti, in Nelson Lakes National Park, as part of DOC extending its range. Because they live in remote areas, the only threat is stoats which live at lower densities in high altitude and high rainfall terrain. In much of Northwest Nelson, numbers of roroa appear to be stable.

Okarito brown kiwi (rowi), estimated pop. 250

Rowi, Motuara Island

The rowi is one of two critically-endangered varieties, and is restricted to 10,000 ha of lowland podocarp forest at Okarito in Westland. The complete area is a DOC kiwi sanctuary. Despite a huge trapping effort, results have been poor, and the key conservation method to build up the population will be Operation Nest Egg - the taking of eggs from the wild and hatching and rearing them in captivity until the chicks reach 1kg when they can be returned to the wild.

The rowi's lifespan of up to 100 years allows it to cope with much lower rates of chick survival than are needed in the North Island. But it faces serious conservation challenges: motor vehicle traffic on the side-road to Okarito township, a forest ecology that encourages frequent stoat plagues, and the fact that young rowi tend to return to the same burrow for years, increasing the risk of being attacked by stoats.

Haast tokoeka showing distinctive
reddish plumage

Haast tokoeka, estimated pop. 300

Scattered through 15,000 ha of cold, wet, rugged, mountainous terrain in South Westland lives the second critically-endangered kiwi, the Haast tokoeka. Two-thirds of this area is covered by a kiwi sanctuary, and stoat trapping is the main population recovery tool.

Of all areas under kiwi management, this is the most difficult to work in, for the inhospitable climate and geography, and the shyness of the birds. Population recovery appears to be occurring at a slightly faster rate than for rowi.

Southern tokoeka, 3 varieties, estimated pop. 34,500

Located in Fiordland and Stewart Island, the southern tokoeka (Ngai Tahu, weka with a walking stick) is the most numerous species of kiwi. This is no accident - this species is exposed to relatively few threats apart from stoats.

Stewart Island tokoeka chasing
sandhoppers

Unusual among kiwi for being active during the daytime, the Stewart Island variety numbers around 20,000 birds. Visitors to Stewart Island may have been lucky enough to see them chasing sandhoppers on the beaches. Numbers are thought to be relatively stable because there are no stoats or ferrets and few dogs on the island, although there are feral cats.

The Fiordland contingent is divided into northern (10,000) and southern (4,500) groups, which are either stable or in gradual decline. Conservation projects for tokoeka involve Operation Ark sites, e.g., near the Milford Track, where the focus of protection is mohua (yellowhead) and blue duck (whio) via simultaneous control of stoats, rats and possums; as well as a large-scale stoat control experiment in the Murchison Mountains, and projects removing stoats from islands in Fiordland.

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