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Kiwi Recovery Plan Kiwi Recovery Plan Dr David Butler, Threatened Species Unit, Department of Conservation, Wellington. Dr. John McLennan, DSIR Land Resources, Private Bag, Havelock North. Threatened Species Recovery Plan Series No. 2 Department of Conservation P.O. Box 10-420 Wellington NEW ZEALAND ISSN 1170-3806 ISBN 0-478-01303-5 Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction 1 1.1 Aims and Purpose of the Recovery Plan 1 1.2 Acknowledgements 1 1.3 Introduction to Kiwis 2 2.0 Taxonomy 2 3.0 Past Distribution and Abundance 2 3.1 North Island 2 3.2 South Island 3 3.3 Stewart Island 4 3.4 Offshore Islands 4 4.0 Present Distribution and Status 4 4.1 Little Spotted Kiwi 4 4.2 Great Spotted Kiwi 5 4.3 Brown Kiwi 5 Distribution Map 7 5.0 Threats to Kiwis and Current Population Trends 8 5.1 Little Spotted Kiwi 8 5.2 North Island Brown Kiwi 8 5.3 South Island Brown Kiwi 9 5.4 Stewart Island Brown Kiwi 10 5.5 Great spotted Kiwi 10 6.0 Relevant Aspects of the Ecology of Kiwis 11 6.1 Vulnerability to Predation 11 6.2 Habitat Requirements and Diet 12 6.3 Social Behaviour and Dispersion 13 6.4 Breeding Behaviour and Success 13 7.0 Ability to Recover 15 8.0 Options for Recovery 15 8.1 Do Nothing 15 8.2 Management in Situ 15 8.3 Translocations 15 8.4 Captive Breeding 16 9.0 RECOVERY STRATEGY: Goal, Aims and Objectives 17 9.1 Long-term Goal 17 9.2 Aims 17 9.3 Objectives 17 10.0 WORK PLAN 18 11.0 CRITICAL PATH 31 12.0 BUDGET 34 13.0 REFERENCES 34 1.0 Introduction to the Recovery Plan AIMS AND PURPOSE see what needs doing and how they can best This recovery plan presents a five-year fit into the programme. Training further programme of management and research people and involving voluntary groups will aimed at a long-term goal of maintaining be important in implementing this plan. and, where possible, enhancing the current ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS abundance, distribution and genetic diversity This plan was prepared in consultation of kiwis. It has been approved for a five- with the proposed Kiwi Recovery Group, year period from July 1991 and will be due comprising experts on kiwis together with for review at the end of that period, or Protected Species staff from the Department sooner if new information leads to a of Conservation's following conservancies: proposal for a significant change in Southland, West Coast, Canterbury, Nelson/ direction. It will remain operative until a Marlborough, Wellington, Wanganui, Bay reviewed plan is in place. of Plenty, Hawkes Bay, East Coast, The plan is approved by the Director- Tongariro/Taupo, Waikato, Auckland and General of Conservation as a guide to the Northland. Department in its management of kiwis. Its The following attended meetings with the mplementation will be overseen by a Kiwi i authors to formulate plan drafts: Recovery Group and will be dependent on John Cockrem (Massey University), and vary with the resources and information Rogan Colbourne (DOC, Science & available at any point. The Research), Ron Goudswaard (Wellington recommendations contained in this plan do Zoo), Jim Jolly (private consultant), Murray not necessarily represent the views of all Potter (Massey University), John Lyall, those involved in its production, who are Raewyn Empson, Wayne Hutchinson, Mike acknowledged below. McGlynn, Cam Speedy, Phil Thomson, All kiwi species are included in the one Shaarina Boyd, Ray Pierce (DOC plan because they share many problems and conservancies). possible solutions. All are considered threatened with extinction unless the causes The plan also benefited from the of declines are addressed. For those in most comments of many individuals both within immediate danger, establishing populations and outside the Department of Conservation, on offshore islands and perhaps captivity particularly the New Zealand Conservation may continue to be necessary. But this plan Authority and its regional Conservation Boards, and the Royal Forest & Bird aims to retain kiwis on the mainland, recognising that in the long run the best way Protection Society. of preserving the diversity of New Zealand's INTRODUCTION TO THE KIWIS fauna and flora is to conserve the species as part of the community they have evolved in. Kiwis are the smallest members of the ratites, a group of flightless birds which There is only a small group of individuals includes the rheas of South America, the with the skills to undertake significant cassowaries of Australia and New Guinea, research and management of kiwis, and and the ostriches of Africa. They are including all species together allows them to 1 endemic to New Zealand and ancient in take an exceedingly long time to hatch. origin; their ancestor, which may also have Males are the smaller of the two sexes and spawned the moas, probably arrived in New perform most of the parental care. This Zealand some 70 million years ago reversal in sex roles is associated with (Fleming, 1962). monogamy, a combination which is extremely rare among birds. Kiwis are biological oddities, unique in both appearance and behaviour. Many of The genus Apteryx is truly a "one-off their features are more typical of mammals design, and it is not surprising, then, that than birds, a characteristic which prompted kiwis have become an important part of our Calder (1978) to describe them as New culture, an unofficial national emblem Zealand's honorary mammals. Kiwis hold a proclaiming our uniqueness. They are, variety of records among birds; their eggs without question, among the most distinctive are extremely large and rich in energy, and and interesting elements of our fauna. 2.0 Taxonomy The names used throughout this recovery Island, australis in the South Island, and plan are those listed by Turbott (1990) in the lawryi on Stewart Island). The taxonomy of Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand. kiwis is currently under review, and some Three species of kiwi are recognised (the changes to the status of brown kiwi are little spotted kiwi, A. owenii, the great likely (C. Daugherty pers. comm.). The spotted kiwi, A. haastii, and the brown kiwi, implications of these changes are considered A. australis) with the last being divided into in later sections. three sub-species (mantelli in the North 3.0 Past Distribution and Abundance NORTH ISLAND some of the specimens in his collection were Sub-fossil bones and archaeological caught there. remains show that all three species of kiwi Brown kiwis and little spotted kiwis were were once more widespread than they are spread throughout the North Island in the now. Great spotted kiwis seem never to have late Holocene (Reid & Williams, 1975; reached the North Island, despite the land- Millener, 1981), but little spotted kiwis were bridges that existed in the Pleistocene, and all but extinct there by the time the first Rothschild's (1893) repeated assertions that Europeans arrived. Two little spotted kiwis 2 were collected in the North Island in the there in the past making similar calls was a 1880's, one of which was found in the brown kiwi (R. Colbourne, pers. comm.). It alpine zone of the Tararua Range (Buller, was formerly common throughout most of 1888; Reischeck, 1930). the South Island, and was thought to be still It is not clear when brown kiwi began to plentiful on the West Coast as recently as decline in the lower half of the North Island. 1975 (Reid & Williams, 1975). Their remains have been found in middens The sub-fossil remains of brown and at Paremata (just north of Wellington), and great spotted kiwis are difficult to their bones are common in caves in the distinguish, so their former distributions are Wairarapa (Millener, 1981). The birds not well known. (A promising technique for apparently died out in the Tararua Ranges separating the tibia bones of these species is before Europeans arrived. Their retreat now being developed by T. Worthy, but it is northwards seems to be continuing, and only still provisional and has not yet been applied a handful of birds now survive in the widely). According to Reid and Williams northern tip of the Ruahine Range (1975), sub-fossil and midden remains (McLennan, in prep.). There is however an indicate that brown kiwi were formerly isolated record in the centre of the range (R. widespread in Marlborough and the coastal Colbourne, pers. comm.). regions of Kaikoura, Canterbury and Anecdotal evidence suggests that kiwis northern Otago. Oliver (1955) reported that were generally far more numerous in the brown kiwis were seen in the Marlborough forests of the North Island than they are Sounds in 1931, and were present in the now. Buller (1888), for example, reported forests bordering Otago Harbour in 1873. very high densities of kiwi on Mt Hikurangi, (Roderick (1983) notes that Doubtful Sound yet the birds are rare there today. Similarly, was also once known as Otago Harbour and it is now hard to find a kiwi in the suggests that Oliver's report relates to Kaimanawa Ranges, yet Buller (1877) refers there). T. Worthy (pers. comm.) has found to a collection of 300 skins that were taken brown kiwi bones in the Takaka Hills. The from there by professional hunters. Kiwi northernmost population of brown kiwi in densities which are exceptional by today's the South Island today is at Okarito on the standards, such as those in Waipoua in West Coast. Northland, seem to have been common in There is some evidence that great spotted the North Island at the turn of the century. kiwis have contracted in range in recent SOUTH ISLAND geological times.
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