The Department of Conservation’s 2017 Kiwi Call Count Report has confirmed kiwi populations are either stable or increasing at almost all sites with good dog control and sustained predator control on the Kiwi Coast, with close to 40 kiwi calls per hour recorded at a Bay of Islands site.
In the early 1990s, DOC established a national network of kiwi call count listening stations to monitor kiwi population trends (stable, increasing or decreasing) over time.In 1993, 24 stations were established in four geographic areas in Northland (Northern, Eastern, Southern, Western) where kiwi were known to be present, and annual kiwi call count monitoring has been carried out annually ever since.
Analysis of the Northland 2017 kiwi call count data showed the number of kiwi calls per hour increased in the Northern and Southern areas, and that the Eastern Area again had the highest kiwi call rates in Northland. The highest kiwi call rate was recorded at the Marsden Cross listening station, at an average of 38.8 kiwi calls per hour!
These results buck the national trend identified by the Kiwis for Kiwi Trust in 2014 of a 2% decline per annum in kiwi populations nationwide, and show the hard work being carried out by all the community, iwi and hapu led kiwi recovery projects involved in the Kiwi Coast is paying off.
The report stated: “It is probably no coincidence that seven of the eight upward-trending areas are part of the Whangarei Kiwi Sanctuary, the Kiwi Coast, or newly established kiwi populations where there is significant work being done to control predators and promote responsible dog control.”
Report author Emma Craig took the opportunity to thank those who had gathered the data:
“Thank you to all the people who carried out kiwi listening in 2017. Your time and effort in obtaining information about kiwi in your area on those cold winter nights is very much appreciated. Thanks also to local kiwi listening co-ordinators and to those who took the time to enter the data into the spreadsheets again this year.”
You can download a full copy of the report here.
If you would like to get involved in kiwi monitoring in your area contact either Rolf Fuchs from the Department of Conservation or Ngaire Tyson, Kiwi Coast Coordinator.
