Saving New Zealand's kiwi

[bhchao]

An article about New Zealanders’ conservation efforts to protect the kiwi bird. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/world/asia/28newzealand.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

New Zealand’s efforts to boost the kiwi’s numbers resemble China’s protection of the panda, and the US’s protection of the bald eagle. Symbols of national pride are always given devoted attention

The bald eagle used to be on the endangered species list. There were only 417 bald eagles in the wild in 1963, mainly in Alaska. Today there are about 20,000 bald eagles in the wild in the 48 States, thanks to conservation efforts.

I recently watched a program where humans at a tiger park act as caretakers for tigers from the day they were born through adulthood. Not in a zoo with cages, but real one-on-one nourishment of tigers starting the day they are born. It was interesting to see the intimate bondage between human and tiger. The matured tiger didn’t even attack the caretaker as it grew big; because it had one-on-one exposure with the caretaker since birth.

In the thousand or so years since humans discovered the remote islands that make up New Zealand, three-quarters of the indigenous bird species have been driven to extinction, and until recently, it looked as if the kiwi could follow.

That would be a loss for the environment, but also for national pride; the kiwi, a small flightless bird that nests in burrows, is the national bird and has become something of an improbable national symbol. The country’s dollar is named after it, and New Zealand’s residents are often labeled “kiwis” by outsiders.

Kiwi numbers have declined rapidly over the past century, as populations struggled with the twin threats of shrinking habitat and expanding legions of new predators. Hugh Robertson, who runs the Kiwi Recovery Program of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, estimates that there were as many as five million kiwis when European settlers arrived in the 1820s and that the population now stands at 75,000.

“It’s because of people and introduced predators...said Jeremy Maguire. “They are a species in decline, and if it continues at the current rate, they will become extinct.” All kiwi species are listed on the country’s endangered species list. But two of them, the Rowi and Haast Tokoeka, are down to fewer than 300 birds, earning them a place on New Zealand’s “nationally critical” list, its most extreme category of endangered species.

Mr. McLennan estimates that the kiwi’s numbers are declining 2 percent to 5 percent a year, depending on the species. The birds are insect eaters with an acute sense of smell and, because they are flightless, their feathers resemble hairs more than traditional avian plumage.

When humans arrived 1,000 years ago from other South Pacific islands, they used fire to clear the forests, starting an erosion of the kiwi’s habitat that gathered speed over time.

The adults weigh at least about 2.2 pounds, and can hold their own against many of the smaller predators, but young kiwis have fewer defenses. Surveys suggest that in the wild, only one in 20 kiwi chicks survives its first year.

So New Zealand’s government agencies have partnered with local communities, nonprofit groups like Save the Kiwi and commercial operations like the Willowbank reserve, to tackle the problem by trying to protect the birds until they have a better chance of defending themselves.

The plan, called Operation Nest Egg, is simple in conception but difficult to execute. Eggs are taken from kiwi nests in the wild and incubated in places like Willowbank. The newly hatched chicks are then taken to protected areas, many of them on isolated islands off the coast without predators, for about a year until they are big enough to fend for themselves. Then they are returned to the place their egg was found.

Mr. Maguire, the Willowbank reserve manager, says the chicks seem to suffer few ill effects from not being brought up by their parents and seem to thrive on their return to the wild. After a slow start, Operation Nest Egg is picking up momentum. Its success rate is rising, and similar programs are starting throughout the country.

[Quest]

The matured tiger didn’t even attack the caretaker as it grew big; because it had one-on-one exposure with the caretaker since the day it was born.

And we saw the news a zoo tigeress went on a rampage in sf?

Instincts can take over wild animals any second.