Moehau Kiwi Sanctuary

It covers 18,556 hectares, of which two-thirds is on private land and one third is on public conservation land on Moehau – an 892-metre high mountain at the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula.

Moehau sanctuary’s location on the peninsula means stoats and ferrets can only invade from one direction, and a tight, six-kilometre-long cordon of traps has been set to stop the killers invading from the south.  Constant vigilance is needed to check what is being caught where.

Community involvement

Three community groups are involved:

• Project Kiwi manages land at Kuaotunu Peninsula and is supported by the local community, iwi, landowners and Landcare groups.   
• The Moehau Environment Group protects 7900-hectares immediately to the south of the public conservation land. 
• The Harautanga Kiwi Project manages about 5000-hectares at the southern border of the Moehau Environment Group’s kiwi zone.

Other community kiwi projects on the Coromandel Peninsula include: Whenuakite Kiwi Care Group, Kopowai Kiwi Care Group, Papa Aroha kiwi Care Group, Habitat Tuateawa and Thames Coast Kiwi Care Group. In total, approximately 41,000- hectares of Coromandel land is managed for kiwi protection.

Progress

The combined Department of Conservation (DOC) and community efforts mean Moehau kiwi sanctuary consistently achieves one of the highest kiwi chick survival rates in New Zealand.

Between 2001 and 2008, chicks were monitored to assess the effectiveness of predator control. In that time the average percentage of chicks surviving to adulthood was 67%, compared to just 5% in unmanaged sites outside the sanctuary.

In 2009, an intensive listening survey was done and the results compared with a baseline population survey in 2000, carried out before landscape-scale kiwi protection began on the peninsula. The results confirmed a 10.2% annual increase in the kiwi population—with an estimated 219 pairs being extrapolated from the data. That means the kiwi population has doubled since the project began.

Management

In July 2008, DOC stopped monitoring chicks on Moehau using telemetry, but predator control, and annual call counts continue, along with training dogs to avoid kiwi. In 2010, DOC replaced 1400 stoat traps with stainless steel DOC 200 traps and plans are in place for possum and rat control on the northern and western side of the sanctuary.

Kiwi avoidance training is being heavily promoted. As well, a 3-month open season for pig hunters who have had their dogs trained to avoid kiwi is being trialled to see if pig numbers can be reduced without using poisons.

This work is done by staff and contractors, and managed from DOC’s offices in Thames and Coromandel.