I am a precious icon one of the flightless birds family thank you New Zealand for working to save me
Tag: kiwi
New Zealand fights to save its flightless national bird
New Zealand’s treasured kiwi birds are shuffling around Wellington’s verdant hills for the first time in a century, after a drive to eliminate invasive predators from the capital’s surrounds. Visitors to New Zealand a millennium ago would have encountered a bona fide “birdtopia”—islands teeming with feathered creatures fluttering through life unaware that mammalian predators existed. […]
Researcher examines how two volcanic eruptions forever changed flightless brown kiwi
When two massive volcanic eruptions blanketed New Zealand in ash, they forever changed the genetics of the brown kiwi bird, a new study from the University of Toronto Scarborough has found. The brown kiwi are split into four distinct lineages that inhabit different parts of New Zealand’s North Island. It’s unknown why these four groupings […]
Hear be kiwis: New Zealand celebrates as distinctive cry of iconic bird returns
It’s a frigid, early-winter night, and across the forests and farmlands of Northland, people are crouching in the dark. They’ve timed this night for the waning moon, so moonlight doesn’t disturb any visitors. Scattered through the night, they sit, silently, and listen. The sound they’re all hoping for is a high-pitched, piercing cry, or guttural […]
What makes a forest healthy? Māori knowledge has some answers.
RUATĀHUNA, New Zealand — In certain seasons, the forest used to look like a bride, recalled Māori elders in Ruatāhuna: vibrant, healthy, and clothed in all its glory. These days, they agreed, it looks more like an old lady, ragged and tired. There’s a feeling of loneliness there now, too, as if the forest is […]
Conservationists turn tiny New Zealand island into bold wildlife experiment
Rotoroa Island, off the coast of New Zealand is tiny, at just 82 hectares (200 acres), but don’t let its diminutiveness fool you: big things are happening here. Over the past few years the island has become the site of a quiet, but grand, conservation experiment. What would happen if you populated an island with […]