First 2008 Kiwi chick hatches at Maungatautari

Kiwi chick. Copyright Kiwi Encounter.

Weighing in at 307grams with dark brown feathers the Maungatautari project's first kiwi chick for 2008 has hatched.
September 2008. Kiwi pair Robin and Horokio kicked off this year's breeding season by laying two fertile eggs. In early August Robin's egg timer transmitter indicated that he was incubating an egg, however when the Maungatautari Trust team arrived to candle the egg (check for development) they found two!

Artifical hatching
"North Island brown kiwi have been known to lay two eggs in one clutch, however both eggs are not always fertile," said Maungatautari Trust ecologist Mr Chris Smuts-Kennedy.

"Last year Robin and his partner Horokio laid an egg which may have been originally fertile, but failed to fully develop and hatch - it was rotten when collected. We didn't want the same disappointment this year so we removed the two eggs to the specialist artificial hatching facility at Kiwi Encounter in Rotorua.

"Kiwi are nationally endangered and so we need to increase kiwi numbers as quickly as we can. Experience with kiwi has shown that removing the eggs is likely to prompt the pair to lay more eggs in the same season."

The chick, as yet unnamed, will return to the pest free southern enclosure on Maungatautari in about three weeks. The second chick is due in the middle of October.

Pest eradication
The Maungatautari Trust aims to eradicate all 15 introduced mammalian pest species from the 3,400 hectares of native forest on Maungatautari - an extinct volcano in the central North Island of New Zealand. To-date two enclosures (65ha and 35ha) have been declared pest free with only small numbers of rabbits, hares, goats and mice detected on the remaining 3,300 hectares. Takahe, kiwi, kaka and kokopu have been reintroduced to the pest free areas.

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