{"id":2866,"date":"2021-07-02T11:25:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T23:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/?p=2866"},"modified":"2025-08-15T11:26:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:26:54","slug":"feral-dogs-undermine-hawkes-bay-kiwi-conservation-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/feral-dogs-undermine-hawkes-bay-kiwi-conservation-efforts\/","title":{"rendered":"Feral dogs undermine Hawke\u2019s Bay kiwi conservation efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u2018Heart breaking\u2019 find in Maungataniwha Native Forest<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dogs have mauled at least one kiwi, probably more, on a central Hawke\u2019s Bay property owned by the Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust and home to one of this country\u2019s most prolific kiwi conservation programmes. Two hounds, believed to have been feral for at least six months, killed a young female kiwi last month (June) in the Maungataniwha Native Forest south of Te Urewera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bird, Orotika, came from an egg recovered in 2017 as part of the national Operation Nest Egg kiwi conservation initiative. She was released into the Maungataniwha Native Forest in February 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attack comes hot on the heels of reports of a second dog-related death<\/a> of a monitored kiwi in the Kaweka Forest Park in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two dogs at Maungataniwha were spotted by Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust staffer Barry Crene. They match the description of animals seen in the Whirinaki Forest Park, some 30 kms away, late last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf these are the same mutts then they\u2019ve been killing and maiming our native wildlife for at least six months, probably even longer,\u201d said the Trust\u2019s forest manager, Pete Shaw. \u201cGoodness knows what damage and carnage they\u2019ve caused and how badly they\u2019ve set back kiwi conservation efforts in this region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trust\u2019s Maungataniwha Kiwi Programme looks set to return more than 50 young birds back to the forest this season but Mr Shaw says this effort could be negated completely by the damage caused by the dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been roaming feral through kiwi country for six months or more. It\u2019s entirely possible they\u2019ve killed more birds than we\u2019ve put back. It\u2019s heart-breaking!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trust is calling for all dogs used for hunting to be chipped and trained for kiwi aversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time for people who take their dogs into the bush to get serious about this stuff,\u201d Mr Shaw said. \u201cTaking unchipped, untrained dogs into the bush should be as socially unacceptable as drink-driving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mauled kiwi was found in an area where many of the Trust\u2019s \u2018tagged\u2019 (microchipped) kiwi, from which it retrieves eggs for incubation, have their burrows. Tagged kiwi make up only a small proportion of the birds that live in the area, which conservationists think now has a self-sustaining kiwi population base<\/a> thanks to the success of the Maungataniwha Kiwi Programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specially-trained species conservation dogs used to sniff out kiwi on the Trust\u2019s Maungataniwha property in 2017 found a large proportion of unidentified adults<\/a>, indicating that that intensive and ongoing predator control efforts there are proving effective. 38 adult birds were found there over a two-year period, of which 22 were not microchipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Heart breaking\u2019 find in Maungataniwha Native Forest Dogs have mauled at least one kiwi, probably more, on a central Hawke\u2019s Bay property owned by the Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust and home to one of this country\u2019s most prolific kiwi conservation programmes. Two hounds, believed to have been feral for at least six months, killed a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2867,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866\/revisions\/2867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}