Thanks to 40 students from Hurunui College in North Canterbury, three young great spotted kiwi / roroa will be released into the Nina valley this Saturday.

Teacher, Tim Kelly, is as excited as his students.

“It’s payday for these guys today, after three years of hard work and initiative,” he said, “but it doesn’t stop here. Now we have young birds in the valley there is even more pressure on us to keep the kiwi killers out!”

Hurunui College started the project in the Nina valley after DOC biodiversity ranger, Malcolm Wylie, visited. The students and community then set up the Nina Valley Restoration Group involving students, parents and teachers from Hurunui College.

Support from BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust and Kids restore New Zealand, a programme under the Air New Zealand Environment Trust, as well as generous local businesses, has been crucial for the project.

Executive Director of the BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust, Michelle Impey, is deeply impressed by how much the students have achieved.

“This shows us all what we can do if we put our minds to it—communities and young people working with business to support conservation.”

"The trust is very keen to inspire and encourage more young people to follow Hurunui College's example and get actively involved—whether starting their own project or supporting an existing one.

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We have a brilliant new resource called 'Kiwi Forever' available, specifically to support projects of this kind. I would urge teachers to use it!"

Most of the work done by the group so far has been trapping and monitoring stoats.

“This is vital if kiwi are to survive in the area,” said Malcolm Wylie. “If we didn’t have stoats in New Zealand I’d probably be out of a job! They are the number one predator of kiwi and a huge threat to the valley’s other vulnerable species such as blue duck/whio, kākā and kea.”

He is also keen to see if the group’s work can expand to target the “enormous damage” done by possums.

The young kiwi or roroa come from crèche facilities at Riccarton Bush and Willowbank Wildlife Reserve where they were incubated and raised as part of BNZ Operation Nest Egg.

Children from Wharenui and Avonhead schools, who have a kaitiaki (guardian) role for Riccarton Bush, will witness a blessing by iwi and ‘hand’ the kiwi over to their new kaitiaki from Hurunui College. The birds will then travel to Lewis Pass where they will be met in the Nina valley by the rest of the restoration group.

If the release proves successful, there will be further releases of up to 30 birds over the next three years.

Background:

About the release
Five juvenile roroa were crèched at Riccarton Bush after being raised from eggs (collected from the Hawdon valley in Arthur’s Pass National Park) that were hatched at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve as part of BNZ Operation Nest Egg™ (work undertaken by the DOC Waimakariri Area office).

The Hurunui College Nina Valley Restoration Group, with support from the BNZ Save The Kiwi Trust, Air New Zealand Kids Restore New Zealand Trust, have installed around 180 stoat traps (with more to come!) in the Nina valley to help protect some of the remaining native bird species in the valley.

There are four main objectives behind releasing juvenile kiwi into the Nina:
to supplement what is currently believed to be a remnant, low-density population;
to maintain the current range of great spotted kiwi;
to support a community group in their objectives to ‘restore’ the Nina valley; and
to monitor, in a managed site, the survival and behaviour of juvenile GSK which have been through the BNZ Operation Nest Egg programme

On the day
The kiwi will be collected from Willowbank in Christchurch in the morning. Staff and iwi will be at Willowbank to prepare them for transfer.

The release is planned to occur around 12.30 pm.

Prior to the release, the helicopter will be used to fly some more stoat traps into the upper end of the valley. The Hurunui College group will then shift these traps from the drop locations out onto some new trap lines.

Kiwi in the Nina valley
There have been recent reports of kiwi being heard in the valley and, although their presence is yet to be confirmed. It is believed that the Nina is part of the historic range of great-spotted kiwi.

The released birds will be weighed each month for the next few months to monitor their progress. In time it is hoped that the Nina Valley Restoration Group will be able to undertake most of this work themselves.

BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust was established in November 2002 by Bank of New Zealand and the Department of Conservation, building on a sponsorship relationship that started in 1991. BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust is responsible for public awareness and education, fundraising, sponsorship and grant allocations for kiwi recovery nationally. In 2010 alone, $880,000 was allocated to community and DOC kiwi projects. More than $5 million has been granted for kiwi work in total. This money came from BNZ, its staff, customers and supporters of BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust.

Teachers in New Zealand interested in teaching about kiwi in their classroom can request a copy of Kiwi Forever from Save the Kiwi Trust. It has been created to support teaching and learning about kiwi. The aim of this resource is to inspire and encourage more young people to be involved in contributing to a sustainable future for kiwi.

Kiwi Forever is based on the New Zealand Curriculum (2007), is targeted at levels 2 through 4 of the New Zealand Curriculum, is the culmination of months of research and writing, and has been professionally peer-reviewed.

For more information about the Kiwi Forever resource visit: http://www.savethekiwi.org.nz/kiwi-classroom/teachers-corner/kiwi-forever-a-resource-for-schools.html

BNZ Operation Nest Egg™ is a powerful tool to reverse the decline of key kiwi populations. Eggs and chicks are harvested from nests to save them from stoats and cats. The young kiwi are returned to the wild when they weight about 1kg, big enough to fight off these predators. More than 1400 kiwi chicks have been returned to the wild since the programme began in 1994, with captive facilities and hundreds of field workers from DOC and community groups throughout the country contributing to its success. The BNZ Operation Nest Egg™ egg harvesting>chick rearing>return to the wild technique was developed for kiwi through research funded solely by Bank of New Zealand and is now also used in other species recovery programmes.

www.savethekiwi.org.nz

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