New Zealand is witnessing an extraordinary citizen-led effort to bring its sacred national bird, the kiwi, back to the capital's hills after an absence of over a century. Residents are spearheading an ambitious campaign to reintroduce the endangered, flightless birds to their ancestral lands.
A Historic Homecoming
Kiwi are 'a part of who we are and our sense of belonging here,' Paul Ward, founder of the Capital Kiwi Project, a charitable trust, said. 'But they've been gone from these hills for well over a century and we decided as Wellingtonians that wasn't right.'
In a poignant scene late on Tuesday night, Ward and his team traversed rugged farmland, shrouded in mist above the dark sea separating New Zealand's North and South Islands. By the dim glow of red torchlight, they silently carried seven crates, each containing a kiwi. This release marked a significant milestone, including the 250th bird relocated to Wellington since the project's inception.
The Kiwi's Significance
The kiwi, a shy and distinctive bird with underdeveloped wings and a whiskery face, is so emblematic that it lends its name to New Zealanders themselves. Its image is ubiquitous, even adorning the tailfins of the country's air force planes – an ironic tribute for a bird that cannot fly and possesses no tail.
Historically, an estimated 12 million kiwis roamed the landscape before human settlement. Today, however, only around 70,000 remain nationwide, with the population declining by 2 per cent annually.
A Ceremonial Release
In the hills where Wellington's kiwi now live and breed, the only late-night sound on Tuesday was the whoosh of wind turbines. Mr Ward and his friends set their crates down in pairs, slid them open and gently tilted the boxes.
Some in the small group of hushed onlookers were tearful. One man chanted a karakia, a Māori prayer. From each crate, a long, curved beak eventually protruded as kiwi took their first tentative steps into the shadowed landscape, then sped to a run and disappeared into the darkness.
Kiwi Visit Parliament
One place kiwi had never set foot until this week was inside New Zealand's Parliament. Hours before Wellington's seven newest residents were transported to their hillside home, they were carried into Parliament's grand banquet hall by handlers for a celebration of the 250th kiwi's arrival in the city.
Politicians and schoolchildren alike expressed whispered delight at seeing the timid, nocturnal birds up close, many for the first time, as conservation workers cradled the large birds like human babies, with their gnarled feet outstretched.
'This animal has given us as a people so much in terms of our sense of identity,' Mr Ward said. 'We want to challenge our civic leaders, our politicians and say 'this is a relationship we need to honour.''
From Sanctuaries to Urban Life
New Zealand is home to some of the world's strangest and rarest bird species. Some have only survived because of against-all-odds conservation programs, at times with uncertain funding. Initiatives decades ago saw all surviving birds of some species moved onto offshore, predator-free islands or into sanctuaries where they could be carefully monitored and protected, but where few New Zealanders would ever see one.
Mr Ward and his group had a different dream: that New Zealand's iconic national bird could flourish alongside people in a bustling capital city, where human encroachment and introduced predators had wiped out the kiwi before. 'Where people are is also the places where we can bring them back because we've got the means to do that guardianship,' Mr Ward said.
Thousands of Traps Protect Kiwi
Although unmanaged kiwi populations are shrinking, their numbers have thrived in carefully managed wild bird sanctuaries — so much, in fact, that some of these protected areas have run out of room for them. That has prompted their relocation to places like Wellington, where groups such as Mr Ward's rally residents to embrace their new neighbors. Kiwi have been spotted by late night mountain bikers and on backyard security camera footage in the capital, he said.
'They're living and calling and being encountered on the hills surrounding our city,' Mr Ward said. That has taken work. Over the past decade, efforts between landowners, the local Māori tribe and the Capital Kiwi Project have produced a sprawling, 24,000-hectare tract of land where kiwi can roam. It's dotted with more than 5,000 traps for stoats, the main predator of kiwi chicks. So far, the Wellington population has a 90 per cent chick survival rate.
Predator-Free Goal
The kiwi initiative is part of New Zealand's quest to rid the island nation of introduced predators, including feral cats, possums, rats and stoats, by the year 2050. Since a previous government established the target in 2016 its chances of success have been debated, but community groups have taken up the work in earnest.
Parts of Wellington are now entirely free of mammalian predators apart from household pets, and native birds flourish. Volunteers monitor suburbs with military precision for the appearance of a single rat.
'When I think of endangered species globally, for the most part you can't do much other than campaign or donate money,' said Michelle Impey, chief executive of Save the Kiwi. 'But we have this incredible movement throughout the country where everyday people are taking it on under their own steam to do what they can to protect a threatened species.'
