For the first time in history, kiwi birds were hosted inside New Zealand's parliament, marking a significant conservation milestone. The event, held in the Wellington banquet hall, brought together politicians, children, and Māori groups to witness the success of efforts to protect the country's national bird.
When five kiwi were presented to a crowd of 300 people, there was an awe-struck intake of breath. As handlers moved through the group, cradling the whiskery birds, onlookers were spellbound. Some grew teary, and one boy, noticing a soft brown feather drift to the floor, scooped it up as his mother urged him to keep it safe.
New Zealand may be saturated with images of its treasured national bird, but it is rare to see one in the flesh. This was the first time kiwi had ever set foot in parliament. The event on Tuesday night marked the culmination of a nine-year project to redevelop a kiwi population in Wellington's wilds after a more than 100-year absence.
‘Coming Home’: Kiwi Reintroduction Success
“This is our manu [birds] coming home to the place they have inhabited for millions of years but which they had a brief exile from,” said Paul Ward, founder of the Capital Kiwi Project, a community initiative that in 2022 set out to reintroduce kiwi to the city.
The fluffy and flightless kiwi is one of the most vulnerable birds in New Zealand. Roughly 12 million kiwi once roamed the country, but introduced predators and habitat loss have driven numbers to worrying lows—70,000 at the last estimate. “Kiwi have been a part of who we are and our sense of identity as long as people have been here,” Ward said. “If we are honest with ourselves, we haven’t honoured the koha [gift] of that relationship.”
Conservation efforts are starting to boost kiwi numbers. In Wellington, the Capital Kiwi Project is leading the charge. The first cohort of 11 kiwi were released into a vast sweep of hilly farmland in Mākara, 25 minutes west of Wellington’s centre, in November 2022. Another 232 have followed, producing dozens of chicks. The project achieved an unprecedented 90% chick survival rate, far exceeding the 30% target required by its Department of Conservation permit.
Community-Driven Conservation
The seven kiwi brought to parliament—five of which were shown to the crowd—are the last cohort to be introduced, bringing the total number of birds released into Wellington’s wilds to 250. Wellington now has the largest population of people living alongside wild kiwi in the world. Residents hear kiwi in their gardens at night, mountain bikers encounter them on tracks, and kiwi have been spotted in suburbs far from their release sites.
“It’s demonstrating that even for a concentrated urban environment like Wellington city, we can restore biodiversity,” said Wellington mayor Andrew Little. The project’s success is due to the community’s enthusiastic buy-in, Ward noted. “Arguably there have been more Wellingtonians involved in this [project] than were extras in Lord of the Rings,” he told the crowd, generating hearty laughter.
More than 100 landowners gave permission for the project to install 5,300 stoat traps across the bird’s new 24,000-hectare habitat—making it the largest intensive stoat-trapping network of its kind in the country. Schools, iwi, volunteers, and mountain-bikers contributed through trapping, advocacy, and fundraising. Iwi and sanctuaries across the island gifted birds to the project. “It’s a network of traps, but it is a network of relationships… and what that has enabled is the restoration of a taonga [treasured] species to that landscape,” Ward said.
Following the event, the kiwi were transported to Terawhiti station, one of the country’s oldest and largest sheep stations on the Mākara coast, for release. On the expansive ridges overlooking the Cook Strait, under a soft mist and the whirr of wind turbines, the kiwi poked their long needle-like beaks out of their boxes and skipped out into the inky night. The crowd fell quiet, taking in the pleasure of watching kiwi embark on a new life in the wild and reflecting on the project’s magnitude. “That work to return kiwi is a shared purpose that is extremely powerful,” Ward said. “What’s incredibly satisfying about tonight is that it’s working, it’s showing what’s possible when people work together.”
