Many dogs have escaped into the bush and gone wild, sometimes wiping out whole kiwi populations in a few months.

The kiwi’s strong and distinctive smell is very recognisable and easy for a dog to track.

Without wing muscles to protect it, the kiwi's chest structure can be easily crushed – a dog can kill a kiwi simply by picking it up in its mouth.  Flightlessness, a good idea for many millions of years, suddenly left the kiwi utterly vulnerable to predation.

Waitangi State Forest Massacre

One tragic incident in 1987 involved a female German shepherd living wild in Waitangi State Forest.  This dog killed an estimated 800 to 1,000 kiwi in just six weeks.  Researchers first noticed the dog’s deadly activities only by chance.  Thirteen of their radio-tagged kiwi were killed, all violently, and 10 were buried under leaf litter and soil.  As the scientists regularly checked on the kiwi, the numbers of dead birds began to outweigh the numbers of live ones.  With every week that went by, the horror mounted.

At first it was assumed that a pack of wild dogs must be loose in the forest.  Finally, a single female was shot, and the massacre stopped.  In the six weeks she lived in the forest, this one dog killed more than half its kiwi. Most of them were not eaten; it appears she killed them for sport.

Domestic, Farm and Hunting Dogs

Farm dogs and domestic dogs, people’s pets, also kill kiwi.  Kiwi living near people are particularly vulnerable. If you live near a kiwi population and own a dog, you should always keep it on the leash when out walking in the bush.  Your dog can catch and kill a kiwi in seconds – before you have a chance to intervene.  At night, dogs living near kiwi areas should always be indoors or tied up – many kiwi die during canine night-time hunting sprees.

If you hunt with dogs, keep them close.  If you lose your dog, or see a feral dog, report it immediately to your local Department of Conservation office.  That way they can do something before too many kiwi are killed.

Find out where you can take your dog on public conservation land by visiting DOC's website.