Kiwi conservationists raise a glass to rare Christmas surprise chick, Eggnog

Wednesday, 27 December 2017

A rare rowi kiwi chick hatched at the West Coast Wildlife Centre about 7am on Christmas Day. It has been named Eggnogg.

While excited children across New Zealand were tearing open presents on Christmas Day, West Coast conservationists were unwrapping a gift of their own – a rare rowi kiwi chick.

The newborn, christened Eggnog, hatched at the West Coast Wildlife Centre in Franz Josef about 7am on Christmas Day after 72 days of incubation and five days of breaking out of its shell.

Centre owner Richard Benton said Eggnog's arrival was a 'perfect hatch' and that the healthy chick weighed a 'whopping' 316 grams.

Eggnog, a rare rowi kiwi, was born at the West Coast Wildlife Centre in Franz Josef on Christmas Day.

The young bird was the 50th kiwi chick to hatch this season. Another nine were quietly incubating at the centre, with up to 65 eggs expected to hatch before the season ends in the next few weeks.

**READ MORE:

The chick was a 'perfect hatch', breaking out of its shell without the help of staff.

* Rowi kiwi breeding programme welcomes first chick of season

* Rare kiwi found dead on West Coast

Rowi are the rarest type of kiwi, with just 450 left in the wild.

* Rowi numbers on the increase**

Nicki van Zyl, who leads the centre's four-strong team overseeing kiwi hatchings, said Eggnog's arrival was a 'really special' Christmas gift.

Conservationists take them to predator-free islands in the Marlborough Sounds before they are returned, as seen here two years ago, to a sanctuary at Ōkarito on the West Coast.

'The little guy hatched all on his own – a perfect, natural hatching without any intervention needed,' she said.

'We didn't actually expect the chick to hatch then, so it was quite nice walking in and seeing it.

'We were open on Christmas Day so to have a new chick to greet us was really special.'

It will take staff around a year to identify Eggnog's gender. Male and female rowi kiwis look exactly the same for the first 12 months, until females become a little larger and grow bigger bills.

The centre has now hatched 278 rowi kiwi chicks and 109 Haast tokoeka, a similarly-vulnerable type of kiwi, since it opened in 2010. Staff work with the Department of Conservation (DOC) and Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio to ensure the birds' survival.

Rowi are the rarest of the five kiwi with fewer than 450 birds left in the wild and found only in the Ōkarito Kiwi Sanctuary near Franz Josef.

While listed as nationally vulnerable, conservation efforts through Operation Nest Egg have seen numbers surviving from hatching to adulthood rising from two to 50 a year, leading to a downgrading of the threat level. The goal is to increase the rowi population to 600 by 2018.

During the breeding season, which this year started in July, earlier than usual, DOC staff collect rowi eggs from the forest around Ōkarito to save them from predators, mainly stoats.

Incubated at the wildlife centre, three weeks after hatching they are transferred to the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch for five weeks, before spending a year on two predator-free islands in the Marlborough Sounds and eventually being returned to back to the Ōkarito forest once they are big enough to fend for themselves.

'Without us intervening these guys would only have a 5 per cent chance of making it to an adult because of predation,' van Zyl said.