Rowi Project Blog

Thanks to transmitters attached to rowi, we are able to tell when an egg has been laid, and so get to eggs and chicks before stoats do!  However, not all the birds on Okarito can be monitored.  The team has been out in the field the past couple of nights trying to catch chicks hatched from eggs laid by unmonitored birds.  Of four that were due to be rescued, three are likely to have already been predated by stoats – the number one enemy of rowi and an extreme killer of kiwi all over New Zealand.

We are very grateful that one lucky chick ran into the safety of a ranger’s net at 2am on Tuesday morning.  This chick was carried out of the forest and popped onto the next available flight from Hokitika to Christchurch where the Willowbank staff will take care of it before it travels up to Motuara for the year.

This sad news highlights again why we really need to use BNZ Operation Nest Egg!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 4:24 pm by savethekiwi and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.