A hunter who heard an unfamiliar kiwi call on the South Island’s remote West Coast alerted the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC), which confirmed that the cry came from a female Kiwi Pukupuku, also called the dwarf or little spotted kiwi. The discovery marked the first documented sighting of the species on the mainland since 1978.
DOC flew ranger Iain Graham and his conservation dog Brew into the rugged Adams Wilderness Area to track the bird. “I heard kiwi calls on the first night and knew immediately that they didn’t sound like other kiwis,” said Graham, according to the German newspaper Die Zeit. He added that narrowing down the search area took several days.
Brew first located an empty burrow, but during a night patrol the dog traced the elusive bird to a second den. Graham collected a few feathers so scientists can verify genetically that the individual is indeed a Kiwi Pukupuku.
“Finding one borders on a miracle,” said Emily King, head of the Kiwi Recovery Group, noting that the last confirmed mainland sighting dated to 1978. She added that Kiwi Pukupuku are among the species that make Aotearoa especially distinctive.
Apteryx owenii is the smallest and rarest kiwi. Conservationists had long believed it survived only on offshore islands and within fenced, predator-free sanctuaries. Fewer than 2,000 are thought to remain.
DOC, in partnership with local Māori, planned new measures to protect the newly found bird and to survey nearby valleys. Field teams will deploy acoustic recorders to detect additional calls, and Graham and Brew have been asked to stay on standby. The female kiwi was left in her burrow; officials emphasized that the priority is protection rather than relocation.
The preparation of this article relied on a news-analysis system.