Since 2018, The Capital Kiwi Project has partnered with locals, iwi and landowners – including Wellington City Council – to transform the hills surrounding our capital city into a place for kiwi to thrive in the wild.
Kiwi are tough and resilient animals. With predator threats controlled to appropriate levels our national icon and taonga can come home to the trails, reserves, and paddocks of Pōneke.
Over 200 kiwi are now free ranging out west around Mākara, translocated in over a dozen releases since 2022. A key goal for Capital Kiwi to create a growing sustainable population is to see chicks born in the wild and survive their early months when they're at risk of predation from stoats, so they can grow to a weight they can fend off that threat.
The most recent graduate, Maui, hatched on Terawhiti Station in October 2024. In March this year, they had their transmitter removed.
“This liberation marks a significant milestone for kiwi comeback in the capital. In short: it shows that the network of protection Wellingtonians have woven together to welcome kiwi back home is working,” says Capital Kiwi project founder Paul Ward.
In areas with no pest control, kiwi chick survivorship is 0 - 5%. The main reason for this is the stoat - a wily mustelid introduced in the nineteenth century in a failed attempt to control rabbits. When adult birds die they are not replacing themselves with future generations, which means kiwi numbers could head towards the way of the moa with no animal predator control.