Author
David Clarkson

Prior Publication
The Press, Christchurch

Copyright
The Press, Christchurch

Establishing a 10km square zone that is stoat-free will boast the survival chances for Okarito brown kiwi chicks, New Zealand’s rarest kiwi.

An estimated remnant population of only 200 birds, known as rowi, lives near Franz Joseph in South Westland.

The Minister of Conservation, Sandra Lee, said details of the $368,000 predator-control programme were still being worked out, but she believed it would involve setting up lines of control stations about 500m apart.

The lines would stretch about 200km around the 10km square breeding area in Okarito Forest. “Rowi are the rarest of our kiwi species and now they have a real chance at survival inside their natural habitat without the need to move eggs and chicks and secure rearing areas,” she said.

The Department of Conservation is using extra funding to step up its rowi monitoring programme at Okarito, using miniature radio transmitters to track breeding pairs and new-born chicks.

Ms Lee said this funding would double the present monitoring bringing the total to 30 chicks and 50 pairs. It will enable the further study of forest ecology and response to reduction in predators.

The West Coast Conservancy will spend an extra $816,000 this year to protect the region’s unique animals and plants through the Government’s biodiversity funding package. In its June budget, the Government committed an extra $187 million to biodiversity protection over the next five years. The department gets an extra $12m in the first year, increasing progressively to $48m in 2005.

On the West Coast, it will be spent mainly on protecting two species of kiwi. A Haast project to help the tokoeka will get $190,500 and the Franz Joseph rowi project will get a total of almost $436,000.

Tokoeka, which means “weka with a walking stick”, are found mostly in rugged alpine areas near Haast. Some of the money will be used to complete the first accurate picture of their numbers and survival prospects.

It is estimated that only 250 tokoeka exist but very little is know about the species. In summer, they are found in the sub-alpine and alpine tussock lands near Haast, but nothing is known about their winter habitat.

Ms Lee said the extra funding meant more staff would be employed to help determine whether the existing tokoeka population was viable and how much human intervention was needed to insure its continuing survival.

The department would use the survey information to create a plan that might involve the removal of eggs and chicks to controlled rearing areas in Hokitika, and Motuara Islnad in the Marlborough Sounds.

She said the department might also need to implement extensive predator control to assist natural breeding in the habitat area through the elimination of stoats and cats.

On the Chatham Islands, an extra $42,000 will be used to trace and protect the breeding burrows of the Chatham Island taiko, a bird species which has fewer than 10 known breeding pairs.

Keywords
kiwi  taiko  Department of Conservation 

Updated 20/11/2008 4.09AM by PIPI4