Pakiri Heads North.

Pakiri was part of our kiwi release program that involves public kiwi releases and follow up radio monitoring to further engage communities with their kiwi. He hatched in October 2017 on the Lovell’s farm at Purua and was transferred to the Limestone Island creche. In February 2019 he was re-caught and had grown to 1400g  and released at the Backyard Kiwi release at Parua Bay. His radio transmitter allowed us to follow his journey north. After a couple of months finding his feet in the Ross’s pine block between Taraunui rd and Lamb rd he wandered north to first Ross rd and then further down Taraunui rd. We lost contact with him for a few weeks before Carl of Pataua North Land Care picked up his signal in their area. We caught up with him back in August for a health check and transmitter band change – at that stage he was in the Whanui forestry block at the very end of Taraunui rd. We lost contact with him again until recently.  Unfortunately when we caught up with him we found his long dead body, the broken bones are being checked to try a determine how he died. There have been 9 kiwi released in the past two years at Parua Bay and Pakiri is our first death but his travels through the “Kiwi Link” area north of the traditional kiwi strong hold of Whangarei Heads are proof of the kiwi corridor concept with kiwi moving between the different areas managed by local community groups

We call the tracked kiwi that head out west and north of the peninsula our ‘Frontier Birds’ they lead the way, enabling us to make new connections with land owners and residents in the wider area. When people know they have kiwi living nearby they engage with pest and predator control, take extra care with their pet dogs and talk to their neighbours. Kiwi like Pakiri play an important role in connecting neighbours and communities and are a significant factor in the expanding areas of pest and predator control and ultimately an improved biodiversity/ environment in this district