Ruud Kleinpaste: Gardening Kiwi

A couple of weeks ago our Kiwi Trust (Save the Kiwi) visited Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari (Waikato) – not just for a board meeting, but to see how a modern-day “muster” and translocation looks these days.  

It reminded me of a restoration exercise in a huge garden!  

Imagine having a sizeable territory of pretty cool forest, surrounded by a predator-proof fence. We’re talking about 3400 Hectares of safe habitat for all sorts of New Zealand Native/endemic species from a couple of Kakapo to Takahe, stitchbird and saddleback as well as noisy kaka.  

And oh yes, there are more than 2000 North Island (Western) Brown Kiwi thriving in there as well.  

Thriving is the operative word.  

It certainly didn’t always go that well in the past: the decline of North Island Brown Kiwi was about 2% per year, which triggered the then Prime Minister John Key suggest we should have a go at turning -2% into +2%.  

John MacLennan (Scientist and Trustee of Save the Kiwi) came up with the concept of Kohanga Kiwi. 

Imagine allowing a heap of kiwi to “do their thing” in such a forest and use that “Kohanga Kiwi” as a Nursery from which we can “harvest” plenty of birds to translocate to predator-controlled areas elsewhere – Capital Kiwi (Wellington), Tongariro Forest, Taranaki Mounga. Last year 222 birds were shifted to new and safe habitats in the North Island.  

This year it looks like there will be even more travellers in the Kohanga Kaupapa!  

Birds are caught during the day and at night with highly trained, muzzled kiwi dogs. The birds are tagged by bands or transponders, weighed and health-checked, before kept in a smaller forest enclosure. A day or so later, the birds are transported to their final destination: a forest that is protected from predators.  

The cool thing is that this Maungatautari Muster is taking place in the forest and in the local Pukeatua Primary school (Handy to have a spare classroom to assist in the kaupapa!). 

The kids follow what’s happening with the Scientists and volunteers who catch the birds. They record the sizes, the weights, the age, and whether the birds are male or female. They also observe the health checks and note everything down on their own observation sheets.  

My goodness! I wish I was at such a primary school when I grew up, learning about the operations Manual of the Planet and how to restore our Ecological systems. 

HQ of Maungatautari Muster 2025  

Kiwi out of forest and back to school  

Kiwi health check. Photo / Kim McGuire and the Maungatautari team 

This photo is a really good example of female vs male.  Gaia (left) is holding a sub adult female and Steven (right) a sub adult male. Both weigh just a little over 1.8kg, and yet you can see they carry that weight differently. The female has a longer body, flatter head, larger feet and curved bill. The male is a smaller bird, has a rounded head and much shorter body and smaller feet. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be rude clime passes our men in the garden.
He's with us now, Hey, rude, hello Jack?

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Is everything all right where you are?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Everything is very well? Thank you. I even managed, would
you believe I reckons seven hours of sleep last night,
so you know, I know, feeling positively live and youthful
and energized.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
And isn't that lovely? Yes? Yeah, wonderful.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah. Hey, you have been well making mates in the
garden as you always do. You've been visiting Sanctuary Mountain
in Manga totally.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, you've been there.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I haven't, no, but I've heard great things.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
It's beautiful, right, it's a three four hundred hectares of
habitat if you like, and it's been to make prayer
to free. They've got three cackapops. They've got fewer now
because they keep on escaping little Yeah. Yeah, they climb
into a tree and then they saw down. But that said,
I was, so we've got take the stitchbird settle back Kaka.

(01:09):
But they've also got two thousand or probably more North
Island brown Kiwi. So as a as a person, who's
on the Kiwi Trust. We had our meeting there, but
that's not really what struck me. We have meetings quite often.
I mean, you know that's not the point. But the
cold thing is there's book here tour school. So I'll
get back to that school in a moment. It's literally

(01:32):
on the on the on the inside or the outside
of the of Mangatati, and we visited that as well.
So this is basically a place where as a trust
we started all this time when John Key was Prime
Minister to to try to change the minus two percent
decrease of kiwi in New Zealand to a plus two

(01:52):
percent increase. And so this became one of the if
you like, cohungat kiwi, which of course is the kiwi
breeding side, if you like, oh they're like like kindergarten,
if you like. And John McLennan decided, but that was
made in the qtie. So I decided, this is what
we're gonna do. We're going to put the heck of
a lot of good Kiwi in there. We make sure

(02:14):
they're not going to be eaten by stoats and ferrets
and all that sort of nonsense. And then what we're
going to do is when they're about a year or
so old or more than a kilo in a bit,
we're going to take them two places where they can
breed elsewhere where they can live elsewhere Capital Kiwi, Wellington, Tongariro, Taranaki, Manga,
that sort of stuff. Now, yeah, this is a fa

(02:37):
This is actually a world renowned trick to look after
your your native species and that is so called. So yeah,
so that's how that went. So lastly we did was
at two and twenty two, so and this year we're
probably getting more than that. We'll see what happens. But
but the birds are caught at night. They're given a

(02:58):
tag sometimes a transponder and they kept in a little
guiden literally a little part of that mangatusi ready for that,
So that we got laid ten twenty thirty for them
in a bus literally drive them to wherever they need
to go. But now comes the thing. The kids that
put you to a primary school. They see all those

(03:19):
gear we come in because they've got a spare classroom
which is basically a science part for them to totally see.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
And record what's happening. How old they are, isn't it cool?
How old they are, so whether they're male or female,
how they are, how is their health? Oh and there
are ticks on their legs, oh.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
And that sort of stuff and it is such a cool,
cool thing. So these kids literally learn a lot about
what's happening with those birds, how we can literally look
after them, restore their numbers and all that sort of stuff.
And that is this is f you did you have

(04:02):
don a primary school?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
I did, but not to that extent, never with a
keyw like that.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
So that's what it is. So you can actually go
and have a look there, and you can go and
manadady of course, and you can see it all happen.
But there you are, want it and I just want
to say, this is it brilliant?

Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
I gotta say too. Go and have a look at
the photos. There are a couple of fantastic photos that
Rude has taken and shared that We'll make sure you're
available on the news talks he'd be websites. You can
have a look weird too. Thank you so much, sir.
We'll catch up again soon.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
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