'Big brother' boosts bird breeding

Groundbreaking technology is helping to save the rowi kiwi.

Five years ago there were only 300 rowi kiwi left in a 1400-hectare patch of bush at Okarito, north of Franz Josef. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has increased the population to about 350.

Since July, DOC has been trialling a receiver that can be flown over the rowi habitat to pick up data from transmitters on the legs of 137 monitored kiwi.

The information reveals numbers and behaviour, as well as when birds are incubating eggs that can be recovered and safely reared.

Ranger Iain Graham said the "ear in the air" had reduced DOC's workload and increased the chances of finding eggs.

"In about a one-hour flight the receiver gathers the information that would take a group of three people 15 days," project manager Jim Livingstone said.

The transmitters and receiver have been developed over the past four years by John Wilks and Alastair Bramley, directors of Wildtech New Zealand in Havelock North, Hawke's Bay.

DOC hopes to increase the rowi population to 600 by 2018.

More than two dozen kakapo chicks are being hand-raised in Invercargill following a bumper breeding season.

DOC's kakapo recovery team was set up 14 years ago and has seen the population of the endangered bird rise from 51 in 1995 to 124 today.

The 2008/09 breeding season produced a record 33 chicks, recovery team leader Deidre Vercoe said.

Twenty-seven female kakapo laid 71 eggs, 50 of which were fertile, but 14 embryos failed and three hatched chicks died.

Vercoe said 26 of the chicks were being hand-raised in Invercargill while seven were being raised by their mothers on Codfish Island, off Stewart Island.

So many of the chicks had to be hand-raised due to a lack of ripe rimu tree fruit on the island. "Some mothers were struggling to keep up with the demands of their hungry offspring, so in order to ensure their survival some of the chicks are being hand-raised."

Young chicks needed to be fed at least 10 times a day while older ones needed five feeds.

The chicks will be taken to Codfish Island at the end of this month.

They will stay in a pen for about six weeks before their release.

- © Fairfax NZ News