This sanctuary covers 2000-hectares of conservation land and 6000-hectares of private land spread over about 40-kilometres to the north-west and south-east of Whangarei City.  Its topography includes broken volcanic landscapes at Whangarei Heads, and  extinct small volcanic cones and remnant broadleaf reserves of a less rugged nature to the north west of the city.
 
The sanctuary is actually made up of many separate forest areas (both DoC and private), ranging in size from 40-hectares to more than 700-hectares.
 Stoats, ferrets, weasels and cats are controlled over all these management areas.
The Whangarei area is lucky enough to have a large number of Landcare groups actively protecting kiwi on private land within the sanctuary and their activities include Operation Nest Egg, kiwi monitoring, predator trapping and advocacy.
 
An Operation Nest Egg programme is being used to re-populate suitable sites in the Whangarei Heads and Tutukaka coast,  and also to investigate the effectiveness of this programme for recruiting birds into the breeding population.
 
Surveys to determine kiwi numbers and distribution showed that Te Whara/Bream Head had very few birds before the release of Operation Nest Egg kiwi in 2000.  The original six or so wild birds have now been joined by 34 Operation Nest Egg birds, some of which have already started breeding successfully.

The populations within the remaining reserves are not known exactly, but number well into the hundreds.