Thanks to all the people who have booked through us we have been able to keep supporting various environmental causes through our New Zealand Wildlife Fund. We have donated over $100,000 to conservation initiatives including maui dolphin research and protection, pest control, community education and the planting of trees.
In 2016 we began supporting Massey University‘s Brown Kiwi Research Project. This programme studies the brown kiwi’s biology, behaviour and their relationship with predators and competitors. A better understanding of these factors enables better decision making about when to translocate kiwi to minimize stress and ultimately improve their conservation status.
Our sponsorship funded three radio-transmitters as well as the equipment and cameras needed to track our sponsored kiwi - Anne and Jenno, and Tako.
Isabel Castro and her team at Massey University sent us an entertaining update on our kiwi and how 2016 panned out for each of them.
Anne and Jenno
These love birds continue to be a dedicated pair faithful to each other and their chicks. In 2016 they incubated one of the largest eggs the research group have ever seen.
Anne
Tako was found in June with a mate! Yes, finally after a few years of loneliness she has a boyfriend and it is serious! He sat on their nest!
Tako
Anne, Jenno and Tako are very different in the way they approach life. While Anne and Jenno are extremely faithful to each other, Tako with her divorce and moves in the study site doesn’t seem to settle. We do not know why this is. Tako was Bel’s partner for about two years. It took Tako three years to get a new partner after leaving Bel; her divorce from Bel was linked to her changing her home range. It could be that Tako is relatively young and still finding her way in life.
Or it could be that both types of behaviours are different strategies in kiwi’s life. Some succeed by sticking together and some by having several partners and producing babies with all of them.
We will be sponsoring this brown kiwi research again this year. Click here if you want to join us and sponsor a brown kiwi.
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