Chicks released in project to save Kiwi

Four 20-day-old kiwi chicks have been released into their brand new kiwi creche in Hawke's Bay.

The release was part of a project to save a wild kiwi population in Hawke's Bay from extinction.

Her Excellency, Mrs Susan Satyanand, (wife of the Governor General, Anand Satyanand) officially opened the new 40 hectare pest-free area of native bush, lake, wetland and grassland.

The creche is the creation of the Environment, Conservation and Outdoor Education Trust with support from the Department of Conservation.

Trust chairman, Mathew Lawson, said the release of the kiwi chicks signified a new era in kiwi conservation in Hawke's Bay.

"Newly hatched chicks rescued from the wild grow up safe in a pest free environment, then are returned to the wild tough and street wise ready to beat up stoats."

The creche was surrounded by a 3.3km long pest proof fence that had been designed and constructed to exclude anything from mice to cattle and everything in between.

Since 2002 the trust had worked with the local community, the Department of Conservation and the Bank of New Zealand Save the Kiwi Trust, to retain and restore a wild population of kiwi in the Kaweka Forest Park.

With less than 500 kiwi left in the wild in Hawke's Bay, North Island brown kiwi were now effectively extinct south of Hawke's Bay and nationally kiwi are declining at six per cent per annum, primarily due to predation by stoats and dogs, the trust said.

To date the programme had returned 86 juvenile kiwi to the Kaweka Forest Park.

- NZPA