Rowi Project Blog

The rowi team is in disbelief that fires threatening this critically endangered species could have been deliberately started.

Five fires could potentially have killed at least two rowi pairs within Okarito Kiwi Zone and may have done a great deal more damage had the local community, Franz Fire brigade, helicopter crew and DOC fire-fighters, not responded so quickly.

The first four fires were spotted from a helicopter about 3 am yesterday, with the largest spreading over an area of about 500 sqm. Another suspicious fire was discovered overnight by the side of State Highway 6.

Franz staff went out to check on the status of these birds this morning and we all had an extremely anxious wait to see what they found. Rowi are priceless and any loss of genes from the small pool of birds would seriously set back our quest to save the species.

At around 2 pm we were incredibly relieved to hear that all the birds with territories threatened by the fire, were safe!

Contact the local police to report any suspicious behaviour in the Okarito area.

Thanks to everyone who helped us save these vulnerable birds.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 3:42 pm by lizzy 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.