Kiwi
Eastern brown Kiwi
Between 2007 and 2008, seventy-eight founder birds were released at Cape Sanctuary. Nowadays, Cape Sanctuary boasts a population of six hundred Eastern brown kiwi. Whilst the national kiwi population declines at 2-3% per annum, Cape Sanctuary’s average chick survival of 87.5% has resulted in speedy population growth and constitutes the only naturally growing population in Hawke’s Bay. Cape Sanctuary has achieved huge feats for kiwi conservation, notably facilitating New Zealand’s first hapū to hapū transfer, known as ‘kiwi - kohanga’. With a yearly production surpassing one hundred chicks, Cape Sanctuary can ‘donate’ twenty birds per year to populate other conservation projects. Furthermore, between 2007 and 2022 Cape Sanctuary’s involvement in Operation Nest Egg (ONE) raised four hundred and sixteen chicks reach a ‘stoat-proof’ weight of one kilogram.
Kiwi Pukupuku/ Little Spotted Kiwi
Thirty-one little spotted kiwi were transferred from Kokomohua—Long Island in the Marlborough Sounds to Cape Sanctuary between 2014 and 2016. Little spotted kiwi are located in the Ocean Beach Wilderness area, kept separate to Eastern brown kiwi by a ‘rabbit-proof’ fence that encompasses 250ha of mixed habitat, including farmland, pine forest and revegetated hillsides.
Little spotted kiwi were monitored with radio transmitters from arrival until the end of the 2019/2020 breeding season. Kiwi detection dogs, audio-recorder monitoring and trail cameras estimate a population of at least thirty adult birds and an unknown number of juveniles. Cape Sanctuary is in the process of a ‘genetic top-up’ of little spotted kiwi, to ensure a healthy population continues to grow.