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Kiwi Encounter

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stomps
stomps
First Reviewer
5 out of 5
Avg. Member Rating
2
Reviews
8
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Editor Pick

Kiwi Encounter, Part 2

  • April 23, 2006
  • Rated 5 of 5 by stomps from Houston, Texas
Kiwi Encounter, Part 2

This is a continuation of my "Kiwi Encounter" review.

Apparently, it was supposed to be feeding time (which is why I would recommend going around lunchtime!), where the kiwi are actually held close enough for you to see while they eat, but there was some sort of emergency in one of the outside runs so there were no staff in the room as we walked past, peering through the windows. Many people wondered if they could hold a kiwi, but the answer was a definite no--kiwi shake as it is when they are being fed by trained workers, they are so scared. Plus, they are being kept away from human contact as much as possible to help them more easily readjust to the wild.

The next stop on our tour was the nocturnal house. This was where three kiwi were housed, including the oldest one living there (who was an amazing 31 years old!). These kiwi were ones that were hurt or otherwise not able to go back into the wild. And I have to say, they were absolutely hilarious. We all could have stood there all day just watching one of them roll down the hill, bounce up and down trying to look over the wall, running back up the hill, and then rolling back down again! The kiwi on the other side of the wall was nearly as funny; he was running up and down the length of the wall, stopping every few feet and pecking the ground as if looking for food, but not actually attempting to eat it, and then taking off running again. The third kiwi simply amused himself by running around in circles. As cute as they are, this, coupled with the fact that the kiwi has no useable wings or any real defense besides its beak, helped us to understand why the kiwi population in the wild was decreasing so rapidly.

We were then led outside, where there are 30 or so runs that sprawl all around the place. These runs are very heavily protected against ferrets and other such predators, so they seem kind of liked armed fortresses, although we did not see many. Us going outside was simply to give us a glimpse of the runs, and mainly just to get us back into the main building. It was here that our tour ended, but that was not all that the Encounter offered. There was a huge informational exhibition area that I spent probably 30 to 45 minutes more in after the tour had ended--possibly even longer, since, by the time I left, another tour group was pouring in from the nocturnal house themselves!

In this exhibit area, there are loads of stuffed kiwi; there is also information about the different kinds of kiwi, where the name came from, and whether it is too weird to actually be a bird. I thoroughly enjoyed this experience and, especially if you have not seen the kiwi, it is a must-see!

From journal Back to the North: Rotorua

Editor Pick

Kiwi Encounter, Part 1

  • April 23, 2006
  • Rated 5 of 5 by stomps from Houston, Texas
Kiwi Encounter, Part 1

In Christchurch I took a very good tour of a wildlife reserve, where I got to visit a nocturnal house and see the national bird, the kiwi bird, essentially run in circles and roll down hills. They were absolutely adorable, and when I heard that Rotorua had the country's foremost kiwi nursery, in which they take kiwi eggs from the wild and raise them until a certain age before they are re-released, I knew I had to go.

The idea of the place sounds a bit odd, since the odds of animals that have been raised in captivity generally aren't that good when they are put back in the wild. However, in New Zealand, they have a huge problem with introduced predators. New Zealand itself, before the settlers arrived, did not have any native mammals at all. When mammals were introduced, like the ferret and stoat, they immediately began ravaging the kiwi population. They told us on the tour that as many as 95% of eggs that are laid in the wild never hatch. Therefore, they monitor certain areas and take the eggs, during their most vulnerable time, and put them back in the wild when they can defend themselves at least a little bit better.

To get to the Kiwi Encounter, I had to wait outside the Rotorua Information Centre for the shuttle that does a loop around the major thermal sites, etc., around Rotorua. A round-trip ticket was, I believe, $12 to get to the Encounter. When I got there, I waited for around 30 minutes, because the shuttle doesn't quite sync up with the tour schedule, but they had a gift shop full of kiwi paraphernalia (which was good, since my friend had lost her paua kiwi bracelet and wanted another one), and plus, the guy working at the front desk was very talkative, especially on the topic of rugby.

The tour itself was about 45 minutes long, and cost $26.50. I thought this was a good deal because the tour was incredibly informative. I came out knowing much more about kiwi, their habitats, and New Zealand in general. The tour guide was incredibly well versed in everything that went on in the centre, partly because she actually worked behind the scenes as well.

We got to see, through windows of course, the hatching area, where the eggs that are brought in are incubated. Sadly, the last egg had hatched the Friday before I got there, but we got to watch a video of one hatching instead. Then we were led to the area where the baby kiwi are kept in tiny kiwi runs. Most of them were hidden in their blacked-out sleeping areas, but we saw a couple, and they were so small and cute!

This review is continued in Kiwi Encounter, pt. 2.

From journal Back to the North: Rotorua

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