Ancient,
flightless, nocturnal birds have been absent from Wellington for more than a
century
Eleanor Ainge Roy
in Dunedin
Tue 13
Nov 2018 02.01 GMTLast modified on Tue 13 Nov 2018 02.55 GMT
Wellington
could soon have kiwis nesting beside Parliament House thanks to an ambitious
conservation project that aims to reintroduce the country’s iconic national
bird to the capital city within the next decade.
There are
68,000 kiwi left in New
Zealand but the number of birds are declining at a rate of 2% per
year. A century ago, there were millions but attacks by dogs, cats, possums,
stoats and rats have led to huge population decline.
The
ancient, flightless, nocturnal birds have been absent from Wellington for more
than a century, but after extensive predator-trapping by the council and as
part of the country’s predator-free 2050 goal, conservationists believe
Wellington is ripe for a reintroduction of the shy national bird, which few New
Zealanders have ever seen in the wild.
“I would
love to be woken by the sound of kiwi,” said Wellington mayor Justin Lester, who
has been a strong proponent of predator control in the city, which sees school
children set traps on school grounds, and mountain bikers check and set traps
in rural areas.
Under the
program, which is being coordinated by a consortium of conservation groups,
20,000 hectares of public and private land surrounding Wellington will be
targeted with intensive trapping over the next three years to begin the
reintroduction of kiwi.
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