Close-up Kiwi on Stewart Island

Regional councillors Kathy White and Clyde Graf, with companion Hamish Parker, visited Stewart Island in July 2015, in search of kiwi. "We found a lot of birds, including robins, tomtits, kereru, kaka, bellbirds, tui, and even white-tailed deer, but the jewel in the crown was the kiwi.

During a quiz night at Stewart Island Backpackers on our last night in Oban, our quiz companions from DoC told us that there are now approximately 20,000 kiwi on Stewart Island. This is the biggest kiwi population in New Zealand."

Up until now, the Department of Conservation has been undertaking ground-based predator control on various parts of the island - primarily trapping and using bait bags on trees. A preliminary survey of Stewart Islanders in 2014 confirmed that although a lot of people are keen on eradicating predators, the vast majority support ground control methods only, and only a tiny number support aerial poisoning...http://rakiura.weebly.com/responses.html