Whanganui man Allan Anderson has entered the 2017 Conservation Innovation Awards in a bid to get funding for hihi feeders designed to help save the endangered bird.
The awards offer a prize grant of $25,000 for the winners of each section - the engaging young people and communities, predator freeNew Zealand 2050 and the open category.
Mr Anderson's entry pitches a species specific feeder station.
"NZ has more than its share of endangered bird species, none more so than the hihi, a bird with no close relatives anywhere in the world," Mr Anderson wrote on his entry page.
"All efforts to save species involve intervention, sometimes in the form of supplementary feeding.
"Outside of the last wild population of hihi on Little Barrier/Hauturu all translocated and satellite populations require supplementary feeding with sugar water at special feeder stations."
Mr Anderson said the grant would go towards costs involved with the final adjustments and refinements to the two existing prototypes, including field testing, followed by the production and supply of models to translocated population sites.
"Currently field workers on Tiritiri Matangi and Maungatautari volunteer under challenging environments and a grant would be welcomed by them."
