City chicks: Kiwis in Riccarton

The great spotted kiwi is heading towards the endangered list, but a safe haven in Riccarton Bush is protecting our kiwi babes.

It is a discordant lullaby. The clatter of the Westfield shopping centre in Riccarton, the gunning of traffic on the South Island's busiest road, and the song and dance of Saturday's Riccarton market.  

But still they sleep on - six kiwi chicks, between five and seven months old, dozing the daylight hours away in burrows under centuries-old kahikatea in Riccarton Bush. 

Here, in this most urban of nurseries, these juvenile great spotted kiwi or roroa will spend the winter until they are able to feed and fend for themselves in the wild.

"Riccarton Bush is pretty good for us," Department of Conservation biodiversity ranger Malcolm Wylie says. "It has a live-in ranger, there's a predator-proof fence, and it's easy for us to check on the birds. We're not as fortunate in Canterbury, in that we don't have any nearby offshore islands, but kiwi can inhabit a wide range of environments - grasslands, forest, scrub - so its geographical location wasn't important. The main thing is that it is predator-free and doesn't have competing species of kiwi. Our biggest concerns were people taking dogs in and whether the kiwi had enough to eat, but there's good security and [the chicks] are putting on about 10g a week."  

This blue-chip residency follows a successful trial last year, when five kiwi chicks hatched at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve were introduced to the historic reserve.

"We carried in some old logs," Riccarton Bush ranger John Moore says. "It was a five-star motel with moss and fern, but they didn't go back to it. They found other places, under kahikatea or under big tangled vines, and immediately began probing around for food. They're very good at finding somewhere to go during the day and they're not bothered by noise." 

Throughout the country several remote inland or island crèches have been established to house kiwi raised from eggs collected under the BNZ Operation Nest Egg programme, run by the Save the Kiwi Trust in conjunction with DOC and Forest & Bird. 

Until three years ago the programme focused on the most endangered kiwi, particularly the Okarito rowi and the Haast tokoeka, but concern about the roroa population has prompted conservation groups to ramp up support for this species.   

Roroa is the largest kiwi species (growing to about 45cm in height) and the only one found in Canterbury. With an estimated population of 12,000, it is not in the dire predicament of the other species (thanks in part to its preference for high altitudes) but its future is far from secure.  

Before European settlers arrived, about 12 million great spotted kiwi lived in the mountainous areas of Canterbury, Arthur's Pass and Nelson Lakes. Since then, pigs, dogs, ferrets, stoats, possums and habitat degradation have dramatically reduced the population of the species, which DOC categorises as in "gradual decline". Chicks born in the wild have a 5 per cent survival rate, with most killed by predators in the first few weeks of their lives.

*For the full story, pick up the August issue of Avenues*