Not just any trees, but huge female rimu in order to predict a possible mast fruiting year.

Rimu.

How to tell the sex of a rimu
Firstly we determine if a tree is a male or female. To do this we look through binoculars at the tips of the branches to identify any cones, fruit or turn-ups. Cones occur only on male trees and fruit and turn ups are on the female trees.

Once a female has been identified, we carefully attach ropes and send a climber up the tree to accurately count all the tips, fruit and turn ups on particular limbs.

Brent, ready to go tree-climbing.

Rimu reproduction
For rimu to reproduce the males release pollen as the cones open. The pollen is carried on the wind and is received in the turn-ups of the female tree. When this occurs, the pollinated tips become a seed head and the flesh of the fruit is formed towards the end of the year.

Illustration of rimu tips.

Fruit = rats = stoats = bad news for rowi!
The data we receive can be used to predict the fruiting mast years which always result in a huge increase in rat numbers. As the fruit runs out, rats compete with kiwi for invertebrates and also eat smaller forest birds and their eggs.

The increase in rat numbers also means an increase in stoat numbers as rats are their main source of food. As rat-food runs out and stoats increase, the rat population plummets leaving thousands of hungry stoats that start looking for other food sources. This is when kiwi chicks and other forest birds are put under a huge amount of pressure.

Stopping the rat and stoat explosion in its tracks
This is by no means an exact science; there are many variables, such as extreme weather, that also must be taken into account.

Still, when we combine this with our other monitoring methods, we can improve our chances of correctly predicting predator populations and therefore intervening with predator control to stop the rat and stoat explosion in its tracks.

When I spoke to Okarito resident Richard Saunders who runs Okarito Nature Tours, he was shocked by the totally irresponsible behaviour of those who lit the fires. He told me “Whether we get the culprits or not, we feel that this commitment from the local community shows our outrage and disgust that anyone would deliberately set fire, not only to a National Park, but to an area containing our rarest kiwi species !”

Thank goodness no birds were harmed in the fires. With such a small population of rowi, the loss of even one bird would be devastating.

The reward not only highlights the value locals place on this incredible part of New Zealand, it shows the generosity of its inhabitants, many of whom have suffered significantly from these fires. Okarito is an outstanding area for biodiversity and, as such, provides a vital contribution to the local economy.

The reward will be payable for any information that will lead to the conviction of the offender. Information can be passed to the Franz Josef Police on 03 756 1070.

Alternatively, information can be passed anonymously on 0800 CRIMESTOPPERS (0800 555 111).

Firefighters tackle blaze. Photo: Tony Preston.

DOC firefighter at the Okarito fires. Photo: Tony Preston.

You can watch the footage online by visiting Catalyst: New Zealand rowi – ABC science

However we have also had some sad news. Sky Ranger – the cutting-edge technology we use to monitor rowi - recently recorded one of our newly-released young birds, ‘Bubbles’, as dead

Poor Bubbles!

Before we got too upset we comforted ourselves that there is always the possibility that the transmitter is in mortality mode because it has fallen from the kiwi’s leg. The transmitter changes to a quick mortality pulse if it records no movement from the kiwi for a 24 hour period. This can mean that the bird is dead or that the transmitter has fallen off.  Only one way to find out…

Anna and I set out to find Bubbles armed with all our detective gear. His signal was coming from the edge of an area called the Pakihi, (close to the recent Okarito fires) and very close to Okarito Lagoon…in fact it looked as if Bubbles was in the lagoon! …

Strangely Anna and I could not pick up any signal for the young rowi along any of the tracks close to where his signal was received by Sky Ranger. This was very odd as the entire area is a flat, swampy sort of forest, and the signal should not be blocked by terrain. More frustratingly, nor could we get a signal when we tried from the highest point in the area. We even tried driving up and down Okarito road with our telemetry gear…nothing…

Bubbles where are you?…

The last option was for Anna and I to take Kayaks onto Okarito Lagoon and listen for signals from the water. It’s days like these I have to remind myself how lucky I am to work in such an amazing place!  Then suddenly…. beep beep beep beep…

Got ya Bubbles!…

It didn’t take us long to find him lying under a fern. We were very sad not to find him alive and, unfortunately, not in a state where we could find out exactly what had happened to him. It looked like he had just laid down on his side and died.  We put Bubbles in our Kayak and paddled on home…a sad outcome after a beautiful day out on Okarito Lagoon.

Anna with the kyaks on Okarito Lagoon.

Rowi chick with transmitter. Photo: Liz Brown.

The next three and a half months are going to be action-packed for the team, with the hefty job of running around the forest to catch all of the monitored birds to give them a new transmitter.

Each transmitter contains a battery to power it but, because kiwi can only carry so much weight, the batteries we use can only power the transmitter for one year. As a result once a year we need to track down each rowi to give it a new transmitter before the old one loses power and we can no longer locate it.

Rowi transmitter. Photo: Sirtrack.

The rowi chick-timer transmitters are very intelligent; they are able to determine the activity of the rowi, i.e. the amount of time a rowi is out feeding. By recording this information the transmitter is able determine when a rowi is incubating an egg and then once the egg gets older, that the egg has hatched into a chick. With the use of a receiver we can hear this information though a series of beeps given off by the transmitter. This will tell us how long the rowi has been incubating its egg. Using this information we can work out the date we can go rescue the egg, at around 30 days old, and hatch it safely away from predators such as stoats.

During the transmitter changes is also a great time to assess the health of each rowi. Every rowi we catch is weighed and checked over to make sure it has no abnormalities or is in poor health. Once we are happy the birds are healthy and the transmitter is attached we put them back in their homes to roam the wilds of the Okarito Kiwi Zone for another year.

It is thanks to these transmitters that we could tell that birds with ranges affected by last week’s fires were, thankfully, not killed. No thanks, however, to those who deliberately started these! We’ll keep you posted on progress with finding the culprits including a very generous local reward for information - watch this space!

Firefighters tackle deliberately-started fires in Okarito Kiwi Zone. Photo: Tony Preston.

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.

CN pair, otherwise known as Whetu and Marama, have produced an egg that has kept us returning to their burrow we’ve tried to rescue—first as an egg and then as a chick—five times.

The first attempt was made by Hayley, Mike and Duncan whose radio receiver passed out within metres of the burrow!  How frustrating, they knew they were close but were surround by a hundreds of possible rowi homes.

A few days later, Hayely, Mike and myself had a second go at trying to rescue the egg.  Their home is about a 1 km walk in a reasonably flat (albeit muddy) area just off Mapourika Lake.  When we got to the burrow there was an entire possum skeleton out front. It looked like Whetu and Marama had dealt to this sorry possum and had carefully left its remains as a reminder to any other rodent who should think about trying to take them on—that’s what we like to see! Unfortunately we couldn’t reach the egg on this occasion without disturbing the adult birds, so we decided to leave the egg to hatch.

At the entrance of the kiwi burrow

In this situation we wait until the adult transmitters tell us that the egg has hatched and that the chick is at least four days old before we go to catch it. This involves arriving at dusk and sitting sooooo quietly that you can hear every stick and leaf move at the entrance of the burrow.  Hayley, Mike and Duncan went in on a Sunday night to catch the chick. Armed with catch nets, mosquito nets and insect repellent they waited, until suddenly the chick zoomed out of the burrow without any inhibition so fast that all three rangers missed it!

Lucy with the fashionable mosquito netting head gear

Next Anna and I went in to collect this confident chick—although this time it was not so confident.  We had not long positioned ourselves in front of the burrow entrance listening to the irritating high-pitched hum of the 50 or so mosquitoes, who were hovering off the surface of my face, when we started to hear intermittent morepork calls, then a few scuffles from the burrow, a couple of stomps and squeaks.  An adult carefully moved into the entrance and sniffed the air. It took a couple of steps right and sniffed, then another couple of steps left towards Anna and sniffed around her hands.  This was enough, obviously Anna was too smelly! The adult turned and, baring its fluffy behind, disappeared down the burrow.  We heard a bit of a conversation between the adult and the chick—which I can only imagine went a little bit like, “you’re not going out tonight son, there’s something very stinky out there”—and that was the most kiwi we saw all night. We waited and waited and could hear the adult and chick come to the bottom of the entrance, sniff the air and disappear again, all night they did this and all night we waited. At 4.30 am we retired, chick bucket empty.

Third time lucky, Anna and Ieuan went out on a rainy night and nabbed it. Fantastic!

We were all amazed that a chick that old was still alive and were anxious that any night could be its last. The lucky chick is now at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve for a few weeks to make sure it’s healthy before being transferred to predator-free Motuara Island where it will stay until it’s big enough to return to Okarito to beat up more possums—just like its parents!!

Yes that’s right we’re talking about a dog, a Hungarian Vizsla in fact.

Vizslas are actually bred as an all-round hunting dog so are genetically predisposed to hunt for birds. Ironically these animals (as with all dogs) can be both a prolific killer of kiwi and, with the right training and in the correct hands, they can also become very valuable conservation tools.

The path to becoming a detection dog for the Department of Conservation requires considerable training, so I will be kept very busy over the next couple of years. However, with any luck we will be exploring the Okarito Kiwi Zone together and begin species training before the end of the year.

Rein - on her way to becoming an invaluable member of the rowi team

Rowi, along with all other species of kiwi, have a very limited genetic diversity. Because the population of rowi is so small and the monitored breeding population is only half that again, the chicks being protected using BNZ Operation Nest Egg are coming from the same sets of genes, year after year.

A trained kiwi dog will be a huge asset to the team in allowing us to find previously unmonitored kiwi in Okarito. This will assist in increasing the current rowi gene pool and also help us to protect the offspring of new birds using BNZ Operation Nest Egg.

Having spent so much time in kiwi conservation I would still like to urge people to take extreme care with their pets. One uncontrolled dog can destroy whole populations of kiwi in a frighteningly short time-span. See dog and cat owners to find out how you can prevent your pet from killing our icon.

Anna holds one of last year's juveniles ready to return to Okarito Kiwi Zone.

While on the island, we also screened the remaining juveniles from last year’s breeding season, for diseases in preparation for their return home to Okarito Kiwi Zone. This involves taking a blood sample and a faecal sample and sending these off to the lab to be analysed. When the results come back we look for any abnormalities that could indicate disease, parasites, or infections. Anything that shows up must be treated before returning to Okarito as it would be devastating to introduce something into the ‘whanau’ population that could threaten the species.

A couple of highlights from the trip:

During the trip we were treated to some beautiful Marlborough weather and our nights were spent sleeping outside under the stars after winding down with some music from Ieuan and his guitar.

After a bit of foraging, Mike provided an entrée of paua, kina and mussels which didn’t last long when put in front of four hungry DOC workers.

Anna and Ieuan carry out disease screening.

Early in the new year, Sky Ranger flew over the sanctuary and detected 10 pairs that had recently started incubating new eggs. Just as we were beginning to think that the season was winding down, this came as a nice surprise. The next few days will be spent catching up with these birds and trying to rescue their eggs. With any luck, we will be sending a few over to Christchurch at the end of the week.

We would like to wish everyone a happy new year and hope that this year continues to be a good one for rowi!

Some rowi highlights from 2009:

Hira (meaning 'of importance'), the 100th BNZ Operation Nest Egg rowi chick, is born at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve.

Rowi chicks discovered nesting together on Motuara Island.

Makaawhio kaumatua, Archdeacon Richard Wallace, blessing the chicks on their return to Okarito.

Associate Minister of Conservation, Hon. Kate Wilkinson, helps the team release rowi back into Okarito Kiwi Zone after a bumper breeding season.

Students join the rowi team as part of the Untouched World Programme.

To get to Norman and his partner, we had to access the sanctuary from beautiful Mapourika Lake by boat (not a bad start to the day). The lake was so swollen from all the rain that the wharf was completely under water.

Beautiful Mapourika Lake. Photo: Lizzy Sutcliffe

We caught a ride with Iain and Kirsty across the lake (Kirsty is working for DOC’s Research and Development Team studying the kea living in Okarito forest) they where heading in the kiwi zone as well to put new transmitters on some juvenile kea.  As well as rowi, kea are just one of the many incredible species, including kotuku/white herons and royal spoonbills, that make Okarito such a special place.

The kea nest is in the base of a huge tree and Hayley and I stuck around to help – we had never seen juvenile kea.

Haley checking one of the juvenile kea

It was really cool to see the how the tricky bits of working with kea are overcome compared to kiwi, (kea are much more difficult birds to track because they fly!). They needed to use a huge staff, nearly three metres long, to reach the juveniles in the deep burrow. We were expecting to find two kea chicks but to our surprise there were three.

So much is different about working with kea compared to kiwi, for starters kea wear their transmitters on their backs like wee backpacks, unlike the kiwi who have their transmitters on their legs. And having wings which flap and flutter in your face while you’re trying to attach their transmitters makes it extremely difficult. You can also get a more definite indication of the sex of a kea by measuring the crown, not like the kiwi as we have difficulty determining sex even after measuring the bill.

By the time we were halfway through putting on the first juvenile’s transmitter the curtains were just about closed on our weather window and then it started raining….so unfortunately we couldn’t get Norman’s transmitter changed. It is too much of a health risk to work with kiwi in the rain; if Norman’s feathers got wet they would stay wet and expose the bird to the cold.

Instead we set off to get some kea signals. We both felt privileged to see the juvenile keas and their beautiful feathers and happy to help another team in Okarito Kiwi Zone.

Me with one of the fantastic kea chicks.