Kiwi egg uplifting project reaches near-record numbers

Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust chairman Simon Hall examines a kiwi egg retrieved as part of Operation Nest Egg from the Maungataniwha Native Forest.

Hawke’s Bay’s Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust has reported a near-record number of kiwi egg upliftings this season.

Fifty-one viable eggs were sent to the National Kiwi Hatchery in Rotorua during the first half of the season, just four short of the Trust’s previous ‘first clutch’ record.

The uplifting has acted as part of Operation Nest Egg, a project where kiwi eggs are removed from their burrows, and hatched chicks are nurtured in captivity until they can fend for themselves in the wild.

While there are traditionally fewer eggs retrieved in the back half of the egg-lifting season (around March), there are signs of a strong finish.

Save the Kiwi executive director Michelle Impey said that the results of the program have been very successful. In May last year, the trust released its 500th kiwi back into the bush.

“Over the past 16 years, the Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust has become one of the most prolific contributors of eggs to Operation Nest Egg,” she said.

“Reaching the 500 milestone was a significant achievement both for them and for the future of the Eastern brown kiwi.”

After previous success in the Maungataniwha Native Forest in 2017, the trust is also re-establishing a self-sustaining kiwi population at a site in Pohokura as part of a national Kiwi Recovery Plan.

The plan aims to have 100,000 living kiwi by 2030, which will be done by growing populations of all kiwi species by at least two per cent a year.

A major focus will continue to be helping the Eastern brown kiwi, which is the least managed and fastest-declining subset of the North Island’s four regional populations.

Trust chairman Simon Hall said that he hoped the Pohokura site would ultimately help re-populate neighboring areas with kiwi.

“Just as Maungataniwha can now be the source of kiwi to re-stock Pohokura, so we hope that ultimately, Pohokura kiwi will make their way naturally to neighboring areas such as the Whirinaki Conservation Forest, which is also being made safe for them.”

Other conservation partners involved in the project include the Cape Sanctuary, the National Kiwi Hatchery and its funder Ngāi Tahu, the Department of Conservation, and Save The Kiwi.

Hall said that he’s thankful to these partners, as well as the community members that have contributed to the project.

“Kiwi conservation is not just about partnerships, it’s about community,” he said.

“It’s about friends, neighbours and our volunteers banding together to protect this strange, wonderful little bird, frequently in the dark and the cold and the pouring rain. They do it for love – literally.”