New Zealand - Saving The Kiwis
August 2003 – 6 min 35 sec
Kiwi hatching
Music
A kiwi Chick just minutes old stumbles into life. This is Ohupe number 5. If this unhatched egg had been left in the wild, he would have almost certainly been killed by a predator.
Travers: There’s only 5 percent of those chicks that survive in the wild is the biggy. These birds live for 40 odd years in the wild but if you have only 5 percent that surviving you don't have a population. Anybody who can do their maths can work that out.
Travers examining kiwi egg
Bradford: Before Europeans introduced a range of predators there were more than 5 million of these flightless birds. Now there are fewer than 50,000. If left to fend for itself the kiwi would disappear from mainland New Zealand -- left on just a handful of offshore islands.
Wallace: How many new Zealanders now realise that the kiwi could well be extinct on mainland new Zealand in 15-25 years. Our national icon extinct on the mainland -- it's a preposterous end to come to and we won't let it happen.
Music
Wallace in forest
Bradford: Former dairy farmer David Wallace is one of an unlikely new breed of new Zealand conservationists fighting to save this national treasure.
Wallace: We’ve identified at least 24 different ferns, which is quite remarkable. Far more than we thought.
Ferns
Bradford: He and his forefathers slashed and burned the country's native forest and fauna, but David Wallace and many of his farming neighbours are now answering the frightening wake-up call about new Zealand’s disappearing bird life.
Wallace in forest
Wallace: We knew from the work the department of conservation was doing on offshore islands that if you could rid a forest of all the introduced mammalian pests, you could bring back so many of the species that were under threat and some species of plant and animal that were still there in very low numbers would continue to flourish.
Forest
Bradford: What he’s created here in the heart of new Zealand’s farming district in the central north is effectively an inland island.
Pest proof fence
Music
Bradford: A pest proof fence rings 16 hectares of his property, keeping out everything from the smallest mouse, to the agile domestic cat -- and the biggest kiwi killer, the stoat.
Wallace: It’s probably got a 95 to 100 percent chance of surviving here. It forages for its food in here naturally at night time -- it’s a nocturnal creature the north island brown kiwi, which we have here, and there’s nothing to attack it.
Jo fitting microchip
Music
Jo: Smelly little guy this one. This is a transponder which are going on all the chicks now. It’s a form of permanent identification. It’s a little microchip.
Bradford: The conservation department brings chicks here from the nearby kiwi hatchery until they’re big enough to fend for themselves in the wild.
Jo releasing kiwi
It gets the kiwis out of harm’s way in their crucial first few months and keeps the birds out of zoos or smaller enclosures where they’d have to be artificially fed.
Jo: Bye-bye boomer.
Music
Jo tracking kiwi
Bradford: In a few months these rangers will come back for boomer. But today they’re on the hunt for another kiwi that should have hit the critical one kilogram mark, which means its ready to go back into the wild.
Music
Jo: It looks like its just up in this direction, so I’ll just shoot above it.He’s gone up the ridge.
I can see him -- he’s going out towards you Robyn -- awesome
Jo catches kiwi
Come on, you’re pleased to see us, I know you are.
Bradford: But this project at his farm, Warrenheip, is nothing compared to David’s next grand plan. He’s talking now about turning this entire nearby mountain, Maungatautari, into a kiwi sanctuary.
Maungatautari
Wallace: We are helping to save the kiwi with Warrenheip. We want to expand that to Maungatuatari which is 200 times the size of Warrenheip, so we can have between two and three thousand kiwi flourishing in the heart of the Waikato.
Wallace Imagine that – two to three thousand kiwi in the heart of the Waikato -- one of the great farming districts of new Zealand.
Wallace and neighbours on farm
Bradford: Wallace and his farming neighbours are just about to start work on a 50 kilometre pest proof fence that will ring Maungatautiri. It will be the most significant kiwi sanctuary on mainland new Zealand. So far they’ve done it without a cent of government money.
Wallace: There it sits in a sea of farmland; pasture all around it, so that if it can be shown that this island of native forest can be restored, that the dawn chorus can actually be brought back to Maungatautari,
we show all new Zealanders and indeed the world that we can bring the dawn chorus back to any pieces of native forest anywhere in new Zealand.
Landscape
Music
Bradford: This small community will plug away until they’ve raised the last dollar of the millions they need to build the fence. It’s a gift to their children. So they too can grow up knowing the call of the kiwi.
Music
KIWI POSTCARD
Reporter: Gillian Bradford
Camera: Wayne Johnson and Steve Fisher
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
August 2003 – 6 min 35 sec
Kiwi hatching
Music
A kiwi Chick just minutes old stumbles into life. This is Ohupe number 5. If this unhatched egg had been left in the wild, he would have almost certainly been killed by a predator.
Travers: There’s only 5 percent of those chicks that survive in the wild is the biggy. These birds live for 40 odd years in the wild but if you have only 5 percent that surviving you don't have a population. Anybody who can do their maths can work that out.
Travers examining kiwi egg
Bradford: Before Europeans introduced a range of predators there were more than 5 million of these flightless birds. Now there are fewer than 50,000. If left to fend for itself the kiwi would disappear from mainland New Zealand -- left on just a handful of offshore islands.
Wallace: How many new Zealanders now realise that the kiwi could well be extinct on mainland new Zealand in 15-25 years. Our national icon extinct on the mainland -- it's a preposterous end to come to and we won't let it happen.
Music
Wallace in forest
Bradford: Former dairy farmer David Wallace is one of an unlikely new breed of new Zealand conservationists fighting to save this national treasure.
Wallace: We’ve identified at least 24 different ferns, which is quite remarkable. Far more than we thought.
Ferns
Bradford: He and his forefathers slashed and burned the country's native forest and fauna, but David Wallace and many of his farming neighbours are now answering the frightening wake-up call about new Zealand’s disappearing bird life.
Wallace in forest
Wallace: We knew from the work the department of conservation was doing on offshore islands that if you could rid a forest of all the introduced mammalian pests, you could bring back so many of the species that were under threat and some species of plant and animal that were still there in very low numbers would continue to flourish.
Forest
Bradford: What he’s created here in the heart of new Zealand’s farming district in the central north is effectively an inland island.
Pest proof fence
Music
Bradford: A pest proof fence rings 16 hectares of his property, keeping out everything from the smallest mouse, to the agile domestic cat -- and the biggest kiwi killer, the stoat.
Wallace: It’s probably got a 95 to 100 percent chance of surviving here. It forages for its food in here naturally at night time -- it’s a nocturnal creature the north island brown kiwi, which we have here, and there’s nothing to attack it.
Jo fitting microchip
Music
Jo: Smelly little guy this one. This is a transponder which are going on all the chicks now. It’s a form of permanent identification. It’s a little microchip.
Bradford: The conservation department brings chicks here from the nearby kiwi hatchery until they’re big enough to fend for themselves in the wild.
Jo releasing kiwi
It gets the kiwis out of harm’s way in their crucial first few months and keeps the birds out of zoos or smaller enclosures where they’d have to be artificially fed.
Jo: Bye-bye boomer.
Music
Jo tracking kiwi
Bradford: In a few months these rangers will come back for boomer. But today they’re on the hunt for another kiwi that should have hit the critical one kilogram mark, which means its ready to go back into the wild.
Music
Jo: It looks like its just up in this direction, so I’ll just shoot above it.He’s gone up the ridge.
I can see him -- he’s going out towards you Robyn -- awesome
Jo catches kiwi
Come on, you’re pleased to see us, I know you are.
Bradford: But this project at his farm, Warrenheip, is nothing compared to David’s next grand plan. He’s talking now about turning this entire nearby mountain, Maungatautari, into a kiwi sanctuary.
Maungatautari
Wallace: We are helping to save the kiwi with Warrenheip. We want to expand that to Maungatuatari which is 200 times the size of Warrenheip, so we can have between two and three thousand kiwi flourishing in the heart of the Waikato.
Wallace Imagine that – two to three thousand kiwi in the heart of the Waikato -- one of the great farming districts of new Zealand.
Wallace and neighbours on farm
Bradford: Wallace and his farming neighbours are just about to start work on a 50 kilometre pest proof fence that will ring Maungatautiri. It will be the most significant kiwi sanctuary on mainland new Zealand. So far they’ve done it without a cent of government money.
Wallace: There it sits in a sea of farmland; pasture all around it, so that if it can be shown that this island of native forest can be restored, that the dawn chorus can actually be brought back to Maungatautari,
we show all new Zealanders and indeed the world that we can bring the dawn chorus back to any pieces of native forest anywhere in new Zealand.
Landscape
Music
Bradford: This small community will plug away until they’ve raised the last dollar of the millions they need to build the fence. It’s a gift to their children. So they too can grow up knowing the call of the kiwi.
Music
KIWI POSTCARD
Reporter: Gillian Bradford
Camera: Wayne Johnson and Steve Fisher
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen