Bringing kiwi back to the capital: A national taonga returns to Wellington

A night out tracking the new kiwi which call Wellington, and Terawhiti Station, home with the Capital Kiwi Project team.By Gianina SchwaneckeStanding beneath the 110-metre wind turbine atop Terawhiti Station on Wellington's southwest coast, there is barely a breeze blowing.Below these steep hills, the ordinarily dark and choppy seas of the Cook Strait are smooth like glass and the sky is a soft pink as dusk beckons.With such excellent conditions, Paul Ward, founder and project lead for Capital Kiwi Project, is especially hopeful we will be treated to a kiwi call tonight. "Everything is primed to hear those birds."Tune in to the sound of kiwi with Country LifeSince 2022, 138 kiwi-nui (North Island Brown kiwi) have been released onto the farm here, which forms part of a "very intense" 24,000-hectare network of protection comprising more than 4600 traps.On Terawhiti alone, there are about 1000 traps targeting the kiwi chick's number one enemy: stoats.While adult kiwi can fight off stoats, the challenge lies between chicks hatching and getting to a "fighting weight of about 1.1-1.2 kilos", Ward says.The "surprise arrival" of two kiwi chicks on the property late last year - Wellington's first wild-born birds in over 150 years - demonstrated a "proof of concept" for the project.With some diligent pest-management and a bit of a helping hand, kiwi could reestablish themselves in the wild and go on to find mates and breed."Our job is to supercharge those efforts. It comes down to maths and a bit of sex," says Ward.Jeff Hall, the project's field services ranger, says people are often surprised by the adaptability of kiwi and other manu species."They can just about live anywhere," he says.Several of the birds released were fitted with transmitters, allowing the team to track and monitor their progression like we are doing now.Hall has been happy with the initial monitoring results and is proud to say they have not lost any adult birds. Some have even gained weight, about 20-25 percent more, since being released, leading to jokes they're frequenting the Karori takeaways over the Mākara hill.The team tries to check with the transmitters about once a week or a fortnight, and is able to get valuable information back about where the kiwi are and what they might be doing based on the number of pings they get. It comes down to "line of sight"."It's always a bit of a needle and haystack when it comes to walking a ridge," Hall says as he sets the transmitter up. It is even rarer to hear the birds calling…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details