Aotearoa is home to five kiwi species, all found nowhere else in the world. Flightless, mostly nocturnal, the only birds with nostrils at the very tip of their beaks, and with eggs weighing around 15 to 20 percent of a female’s body weight, we know them as truly unique taonga species.
However, kiwi are extremely vulnerable to introduced predators. Without effective predator control, kiwi populations continue to decline, making community-led conservation efforts essential.
Across Aotearoa, community-led predator control is helping native wildlife recover, with volunteers, landowners, and conservation organisations working together to protect large areas of habitat. Around Muriwai, this collective effort is helping lay the groundwork for a future where kiwi can once again thrive in the wild.
The Muriwai Environmental Trust’s Muriwai Kiwi Project aims to bring kiwi back to the forests around Goldie Bush, creating the closest mainland kiwi population to Auckland.
To make the bush safe for kiwi, MET’s volunteers are building a 2,000 hectare predator control network across the surrounding public and private land.
Funding through WWF-New Zealand’s Community Conservation Fund has supported live capture cages and traps, the development of AI trail cameras to detect predators moving into the area, and the establishment of a volunteer rapid response team targeting ferrets.
Within the first few months, the traps caught three feral cats, a ferret and two rats. These are significant catches, as feral cats kill native birds daily and a single ferret can wipe out a kiwi population.
The grant has also helped MET to significantly strengthen its trapping network. Working with project partner The Forest Bridge Trust, MET secured 260 new traps to extend predator control across the project area, with volunteers checking and monitoring traps.
The community is right behind the project too. The Muriwai Half Marathon, held in October, sold out for the second time, with 1,000 runners raising funds for kiwi.
Together, these efforts are helping to realise the vision of hearing kiwi calls in these forests once again.
WWF-New Zealand’s Community Conservation Fund, in partnership with the Tindall Foundation, is proud to support community-led projects that protect and restore Aotearoa’s natural environment for future generations.