Captive facilities

Captive kiwi also play an important role in kiwi recovery, offering opportunities for researchers and managers to develop and refine captive management skills and techniques, such as the extremely successful Operation Nest Egg.

Captive kiwi also support species recovery by providing:

• long-term ‘insurance’, in case something happens to wild populations
• birds that can be released to supplement wild populations
• opportunities to increase our scientific knowledge of kiwi
• opportunities to train people in kiwi conservation.

Which kiwi are held in captivity?

Brown kiwi are the only species with birds permanently held in captivity.

The reason is that different captive management tools are appropriate for each species because of the unique threats and opportunities each species faces. For example, the Kiwi Recovery Group has decided that Operation Nest Egg is the most appropriate tool to recover New Zealand’s critically endangered Haast tokoeka and rowi.

Similarly, holdings of captive great spotted kiwi and little spotted kiwi are being phased out because other conservation programmes are more effective, and because trying to breed multiple species in captivity will dilute the conservation effort.

Within the brown kiwi species, four geographically and genetically distinct forms have been identified: Northland, Coromandel, western and eastern brown kiwi. At present the Northland, western and eastern forms are held in captivity but the aim of New Zealand’s captive programme is to sustainably manage just one—eastern brown kiwi. This should be achieved by about 2025.

Who is involved

Captive management of kiwi in New Zealand is a cooperative effort between the Department of Conservation (DOC) and the captive community.

It is coordinated through the Kiwi Recovery Group via its captive coordinator, Suzy Barlow, and is supported by the professional association of captive institutions (Zoo and Aquarium Association; New Zealand branch—ZAA NZ), and by a captive management plan for kiwi (2010–2015).

The long-term aim of the captive management plan is to have a genetically and demographically robust population which can be used for targeted kiwi releases and to help restore wild populations.

The captive facilities

In New Zealand, 15 facilities hold captive brown kiwi, either on display to the public, for breeding, or a combination of the two. Together they have space about 110 kiwi, a number that is considered to be sustainable for managing a small population in captivity.

Minimum standards for caring for the birds are in the Brown Kiwi (Apteryx mantelli) Husbandry Manual 2009. The most appropriate way to hold captive brown kiwi is in a male/female pair, although same-sex chicks maybe held together until at least 3‑years old. Nocturnal displays can use two males, but it is recommended that adult females are not housed together.

A list of places you can see kiwi in captivity is here.

A potted history of captive kiwi

The first recorded captive-held kiwi was in 1851, when female brown kiwi were sent to the Zoological Society of London, where they lived for several years and produced eggs.

In 1912, a wild-caught brown kiwi first appeared on stock sheets at Wellington Zoo. The first record of a brown kiwi chick hatching in captivity came in 1945, at the Hawke’s Bay Acclimatisation Society’s game farm near Napier.

The first kiwi to be displayed in nocturnal houses were brown kiwi, displayed at Auckland Zoo and Otorohanga in 1972.

The first artificially incubated full-term brown kiwi egg hatched at Otorohanga five years later, in 1977.

It was in the 1990s that Operation Nest Egg was first used to bring wild-laid eggs into captivity. In 1995, the first release of sub-adult brown kiwi was made, and in 1996/97 the first wild rowi eggs were successfully incubated in captivity and the chicks released to the wild.

A more complete history is available in the Captive Management Plan for Kiwi.