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(Music in background)
G'day
I'm Pete Graham and I work for the Department of Conservation here in Whangarei - and I'm part of the kiwi team
I'm on the side of the road here in Purua
we are here with the community to show them
how close these birds are nesting to the road and to their farms -
We're in farmland here, we're not in the big bush
and um... and it's very important for these people out here to know where
these birds are living so that they can uh further
help protect them.
Around christmas five years ago on the other side of the Mountain we had a dog
get into this reserve and kill seven of our
radio transmitted adult birds. The dog may very well have killed more than seven
and so we have worked fairly closely with this community in those last five years
trying to
get them to be aware that kiwi are living in their area and and how they can help
to keep them living here and to protect them.
The school comes out um regularly with us to visit kiwi in the field
and they get uh... appreciate how close kiwi live to their properties and to the
school. They've been involved with planting around their school. They do
education programs to teach the kids and probably more importantly their parents
about how vulnerable kiwi are in this area and what they can do to help
the farmers also put their dogs through kiwi aversion training
so the dogs are educated
to stay away from kiwi and that's an important part of this as well as
not only teaching
that the owners of the dogs about dog management but also the dogs themselves
to stay away from kiwi.
And this is the result of all that protection work
the sort of fellas probably uh... around a week-old - week hatched
so we're just going to put a little transmitter on him and weigh him and measure him
put him back in the nest and this will be the next generation to come through.
I guess one of the main messages here is how close these birds are living to people
That they're not living
miles away in the bush. They are living right here amongst working farms
and that's a road there in the background.
So it has been a bit of a busy first day out of the nest for this little fella
but hopefully
we will be able to use him to
help encourage and inspire the community
to get in behind and help save these things in their area
and as you can see
they are well worth saving.
He's just gone in straight underneath dad,
and it's all cool