The Kiwi Birdlife Park is devoted to helping conserve New Zealand’s native fauna through captive breeding and advocacy, education, research, rehabilitation and by providing a sanctuary for free-roaming native wildlife.
News!
We have been having a great breeding season! We have a beautiful kiwi chick that hatched at the Park on 20th December! The chick is thriving and we need to send off some feathers to determine if it is a wee boy or girl kiwi. We will be shifting it into a sectioned off part of one of our Kiwi Houses on Saturday 7th Jan and will be having a traditional blessing and naming ceremony at 9.30am.
We have also had a good season with our red-crowned kakariki, yellow-crowned kakariki, brown teal, and scaup all successfully breeding. Our brown teal ducklings are released into the wild every year and we have been involved with this great program for over a decade. Find us on Facebook or Twitter for more regular updates.
Posted on 5th January 2012 by Wildlife Manager, Nicole Kunzmann
Captive Breeding and Advocacy
The park cares for some extremely rare and endangered species. We assist several Department of Conservation recovery and captive management programs through national-level participation in advocacy, research and breeding. Specifically, we assist in Department of Conservation recovery efforts for brown kiwi, tuatara, brown teal, kea, blue duck, black stilt, Antipodes Island parakeet and Campbell Island teal, in addition to participation in other national and local programs for other threatened species.
Recent conservation highlights at the park include assisting re-introduction of a locally-extinct species, the brown teal, into the Arthur Valley, near Milford Sound. Brown teal had been functionally extinct for the past few decades in the area, prior to Department of Conservation re-introduction in 2009. Following a successful release in 2009, Kiwi Birdlife Park participated in the release of captive-born brown teal into the Arthur Valley in March 2010, and have had a very successful past season producing two clutches of brown teal for release in February 2011. Watch our wildlife staff releasing brown teal into the Arthur Valley with the Department of Conservation: Boost for Brown Teal.
We were receognised by our peers at our annual industry conference where we were awarded the Gibbs Wildlife Conservancy Excellence Award for the Most Innovative Wildlife Display for our new Campbell Island teal enclosure. This enclosure was specifically designed for these ducks which are the world's rarest duck and are flightless! The Sub-Antarctic Islands are a biodiversity hotspot with close ties to New Zealand and we wanted to showcase this amazing region, its flora and fauna, and New Zealand's link with this area.
Other release work includes the transfer of brown kiwi 'Wairuakiwi' to the Rimutaka Forest Park in May 2010, accompanied by one of our dedicated keepers, as part of the Department of Conservation's Kiwi Recovery efforts. 'Wairuakiwi' has been fitted with a radio-transmitter and his progress is being monitored by members of the Rimtuka Forest Park Trust. In late October 2010 members of the Trust reported that he established a territory next to those of two single females and in early November 2010 reported that he was incubating his first wild-origin eggs. The Trust is able to monitor the incubation using remote egg monitoring technology, without disturbing the nest. On January 8th 2011 the first of Wairuakiwi's eggs hatched into a healthy chick, and trust members reported his second chick hatching in early February. Great to know that this captive bred bird has transitioned so well into his wild lifestyle.
We hope to breed brown kiwi, brown teal, NZ scaup, yellow-crowned and red-crowned kakariki, Antipodes Island parakeet, morepork, NZ shoveler, Campbell Island teal, Duvaucel's gecko and tuatara in the 2011 breeding season. The 2011 season has started with a flourish with successful hatching of four yellow-crowned parakeet in February. The 2010 breeding season produced NZ scaup ducklings in February, two clutches of brown teal (September and December), and both yellow-crowned parakeet and red crowned parakeet in November. Successful breeding of New Zealand reptiles at the Park continues with a very gravid 'Aphrodite', the Auckland green gecko, and mating observed between our Duvaucel's gecko in September 2010. 'Micah' and 'Crook', Aphrodite's offspring from the previous year, continue to do well.
The Kiwi Birdlife Park is committed to kiwi conservation. Currently we hold brown kiwi for advocacy, for participation in a nationally-managed captive breeding program and to provide care prior to their sanctuary release. We have previously been involved with Bank of New ZealandTM Operation Nest Egg; a government run programme supported by the BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust to assist in kiwi recovery. The Kiwi Birdlife Park received eggs of the critically endangered Haast tokoeka from the Department of Conservation. Eggs were carefully incubated and several healthy chicks were hatched, with the park acting as a nursery for the chicks whilst they are at their most vulnerable stage. Once chicks reach a suitable size they are better able to protect themselves from predators and can be released into a predator-controlled crèche island or mainland sanctuary with a far greater chance of survival. In 2004, Kiwi Birdlife Park hatched the first Haast tokoeka kiwi chick in captivity. Kiwi eggs currently incubated at the Park are that of the endangered brown kiwi as part of the Department of Conservation's captive breeding program.
In May 2010 we introduced brown kiwi 'Tamanui' and 'Tawahi' as a potential breeding pair into one of our nocturnal houses. At just 4 and 2 years old respectively, wildlife staff were thrilled to observe courtship behaviour in the young pair throughout July 2010. The installation of a burrow-cam allows visitors intimate viewing of their underground burrow, into which Tawahi laid her first egg in August 2010. Wildlife staff carefully incubate eggs and monitor the chick's progess within the egg in the incubation lab at the Park, if the kiwi do not incubate their own eggs.
Wildlife keepers are pleased to introduce new animal stars to the Conservation Show, held daily at 11am and 3pm. The show focuses on New Zealand's unique wildlife, the threats to their survival and explains ways in which Kiwi Birdlife Park and visitors can assist conservation efforts. The new additions to the show were introduced early October 2010 and are settling in well. There is no additional charge for the show and it's a great chance to see some of our unique New Zealand wildlife up close-and-personal, and find out ways in which you can assist recovery efforts. Come and see the new stars next time you visit...
Captive-held wildlife can provide useful information and samples that can help wild populations or further refine husbandry techniques for captive species. The Kiwi Birdlife Park participates in several research projects; recently we provided:
NZ pigeon and tui feathers for use in wild bird distribution research
captive kea for banding research in wild kea monitoring
leaf litter samples from our kiwi houses to look at Aspergillus spore levels in nocturnal kiwi houses
NZ falcon feathers for use in a genetic diversity project
kiwi faecal samples for a coccidiosis project
details on kiwi light regimes for a study on captive kiwi
UV lighting details for a study into tuatara husbandry requirements
The Kiwi Birdlife Park also participates in rehabilitation of orphaned, sick or injured native wildlife. Orphaned wildlife are reared, sick wildlife are cared for and injured wildlife assisted in recovery prior to wild release. The 2010 season saw the successful wild release of several NZ pigeon, tui, silvereye, bellbird, black shag and Australasian harrier. Follow the link to read about the release of one of our rehabilitated NZ pigeon in January 2010.
The park is a sanctuary for free-roaming wildlife. Native plants and spring-fed ponds in a predator-controlled environment has evolved into a haven for paradise shelducks, grey ducks, fantails, silvereyes, tomtits, bellbirds, NZ pigeon, NZ scaup and tui, which are free to come and go as they please.
We have upgraded our juvenile tuatara enclosure to make more room for our six juvenile tuatara. We have had these amazing animals at the Park since they were hatchlings and their enclosure is about to undergo a large renovation to make more room for them as they keep growing. We will be extending their current enclosure outwards and have had to take down several large pine trees to allow for sufficient sunlight to penetrate their new enclosure. We hope to begin works on their enclosure upgrade in the next few months. Meet 'Zeus' or one of his five brothers and sisters every day during our twice daily Conservation Show. These living fossils have an amazing tale to tell and are a great conservation success story.
We have completed our new ‘Southern Islands’ enclosure, housing our extremely rare Campbell Island teal. The enclosure has been designed in such a way to showcase the rock-clambering agility of this unusual, flightless sub-Antarctic teal, and we hope to breed these rare teal in the 2011 season. New Zealand's Sub-Antarctic Islands are a World Heritage Listed area and a hotspot for biodiversity. We hope to tell the story of these unique islands through this enclosure which we have planted out with some of the unique flora found only on these islands. This enclosure won us the Gibbs Wildlife Conservancy Excellence Award for the Most Innovative Wildlife Display at the ZAA NZ conference 2011.
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Three wildlife staff (Chloe Corne, Paul Kavanagh and Bridget Baynes) volunteered for two-week stints with the Department of Conservation kakapo team on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island in 2011, supported by Kiwi Birdlife Park. Their duties included monitoring nesting female kakapo via infra-red technology, providing supplementary food for the kakapo, ensuring kakapo eggs remained undisturbed (by wandering juvenile kakapo or petrels) whilst the female was off the nest, monitoring male 'boom' (display) sites, checking radio-tracking signals of juvenile kakapo by day, downloading proximity data to assist kakapo scientists, and occasionally cooking for the 17 people on the island. Read more about the amazing work being done, and what you can do to help, on the Kakapo Recovery website.
On February 25th 2011 the Department of Conservation released brown teal into the Arthur Valley near Milford Sound; six ducklings were bred at Kiwi Birdlife Park last season for release.
Wildlife staff assisted Department of Conservation staff from the Kaki Recovery Programme at Twizel in August last year and this year. Wildlife staff assisted in handling and health checking the 96 sub-adult kaki (also known as black stilt) prior to their annual release. Staff are planning on helping out again this year and gaining more valuable experience with these birds which are the world's rarest wading bird.
Check out the following links to media articles from the Park
Kiwi Birdlife Park's 25th Anniversary 1986 - 2011
Kiwi breeding program news
Conservation at the Park
Environment and Conservation Organisations of Aotearoa New Zealand
Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
