New Zealand has 4 species and 6 varieties of kiwi, its national emblem. Kiwi numbers are estimated to have declined to about 50,000 on the mainland – scientists now say kiwi can no longer successfully replace themselves on the mainland as 95 per cent of chicks die in their first six months, mainly killed by stoats and cats. Many adult birds are killed by ferrets and dogs. Without management, their numbers are expected to halve every decade and many mainland populations would effectively be extinct within 20 years.

The NZBS kiwi sanctuary programme complements and enhances Bank of New Zealand Kiwi Recovery. Three sanctuaries are located in the North Island (in Northland, Coromandel, and Tongariro) and two on the South Island West Coast at Okarito and Haast. These sanctuaries contain a representative selection of kiwi populations on mainland New Zealand.

The sanctuary programme includes the following:

• Control of the principal predators of kiwi within the sanctuaries
• Research
• Monitoring results and outcomes
• Sharing information with communities and tangata whenua

Kiwi Sanctuary Programme Objectives
The kiwi sanctuary programme is designed to enhance mainland kiwi populations by controlling predators (in particular stoats, but also cats and ferrets). The programme aims, from its second year, to enable more than 25 per cent of kiwi chicks in each sanctuary to survive to 1 kg in weight (when kiwi are thought more able to defend themselves from stoats). This would represent a 5 per cent increase in populations at these sanctuaries. At present, populations are decreasing by about 5 per cent annually.

Some sanctuaries will utilise existing programmes such as Operation Nest Egg, which involves collecting and distributing eggs to captive breeding facilities such as Auckland Zoo and the Whangarei Bird Rescue Centre. Eggs are hatched in captivity, and most are now reared on predator-free creche islands, before release back into the wild

Research
It is hoped that management within kiwi sanctuaries will provide benefits, not only to kiwi, but also to their ecosystems. The focus of kiwi sanctuary management is the control of mustelids (stoats and ferrets) and at one site (Northland) feral cats, through intensive trapping. This is coupled with public education/advocacy on the impact of straying dogs at sites where these are perceived as a risk.

New techniques for monitoring stoat and possum abundance are also being trialled at the sanctuaries. This will develop our understanding of interactions among pest species. Large scale (over 10,000 hectares) monitoring of stoat management operations has never before been attempted and will help to refine techniques for managing stoats.

Results from the first breeding season Results from the first breeding season have been very encouraging. Seventy per cent of kiwi chicks survived to 1 kg in the Tongariro sanctuary, approximately 50 per cent in Coromandel, and 30 per cent in Okarito. Technical problems in Northland made it impossible to determine chick survival rates there, while at the Haast sanctuary, numbers of known chicks were too small to accurately determine the survival rate.