Exciting times at Okarito

Today we are lifting our first eggs of the new breeding season. These eggs have been laid quite early, so hopefully we will have a good season!

Last week we had John Wilks and Alastair Bramley from Wildtech NZ Ltd come to visit. John and Al made us our "Egg-Timer" transmitters. Now they are trialling something new and exciting.. it's called "Ear in the Air". This is when a pilot will fly a small plane around the sanctuary and a computer will get signals for all the birds wearing transmitters. We will be able to get the information from the computer, and will know which birds are incubating. This means we can monitor more birds and get more eggs!

Transmitter changing

Hi everyone,

We've come to the end of our transmitter changes for this year. The team has been busy catching new birds, and have now fitted over 100 transmitters. The transmitters are attached to the kiwi's leg and send a signal to our reciever so we can find him. We are hoping to have a successful breeding season with more chicks produced than last year.

Keep your eyes posted for news when our first eggs arrive.

Return to the Sanctuary

Hi everyone,

We are coming to the end of the breeding season here at the Okarito Sanctuary. It's been a successful year with 21 chicks hatched, and 4 eggs awaiting hatch.

Earlier this month we brought 8 of last years chicks back from Motuara Island to return to the Okarito Sanctuary. Do you remember where Motuara Island is?

All the birds we returned are over a year old and weigh more than 1.4kg. Once a Rowi weighs over 1.2kg it can defend itself against stoats.

Here is one of the rowi settling into his new home at Okarito. He doesn't have a name yet, can anyone think of a name for him?

We will be bringing 4 more Rowi (including Okka) back to Okarito at the end of February. We will be coming through Whataroa so keep your eyes and ears open for more details if you live there.