Sixty stitchbirds to leave island for Karori Wildlife Sanctuary

The Department of Conservation wants to establish self-sustaining populations of stitchbirds in five areas.

The endangered stitchbird is about to make its first foray on to the mainland for 120 years.

The Department of Conservation will move 60 of the birds from Tiritiri Matangi Island to the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary once the breeding season is over in March.

The transfer to Wellington's pest-free fenced wildlife sanctuary is one of the first steps in DoC's new five-year recovery plan for the stitchbird, or hihi, launched on Tiritiri Matangi by Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday.

She said it was essential to establish new populations. "If your only self-sustaining population is on one island and a fire, rats or disease goes through, you can lose the whole species."

The last time stitchbirds were seen on the mainland was in the 1880s, when there was a small population in the Taraweras.

Little Barrier Island is now home to between 600 and 6000 of them and birds have been transferred to Kapiti Island and Tiritiri Matangi.

Massey University lecturer and hihi specialist Isabel Castro said decisions on whether to move stitchbirds to more mainland parks would depend on Karori.

"They should be fine there, but the risk is if the hihi decide they want to fly out of the reserve.

"Some birds will carry transmitters, which means we will see where they are. But if they go outside, they will get munched probably."

The department hopes to eventually have self-sufficient populations in five areas. Attempts in the 1980s to establish populations on Mokoia Island, Hen Island, and Cuvier Island failed, and the transfer of 181 between 1983 and 2002 to Kapiti Island has only recently begun to bear results.

About 50 were transferred to Tiritiri Matangi in 1995 and 1996. At the start of September there were 130 hihi, and 130 fledglings have been born this summer, although only about 30 per cent make it through winter.

Ms Castro said year-round feeding and monitoring had helped on the island, because the forest, about 20 years old, was too young to provide nesting cavities and food.

But funding was a problem - DoC employed a worker over summer, the breeding season, but it was only a six-month position. Over winter, the work was done voluntarily by Barbara Walter, the wife of former lighthouse keeper Ray Walter, now both conservation officers.

The sociable hihi was well worth saving, Ms Castro said.

Efforts are under way to raise money for fulltime monitoring of the birds, with an $18,500 donation from the National Parks and Conservation Foundation kicking the fund off.