This is a North Island Brown Kiwi Chick hatched in an incubator at Auckland Zoo.

'Alpine' greeting me at the Te Anau Wildlife Park in 2010. She is 27 years old.

The successful rearing of ‘Alpine’, ‘tussock’ and ‘Snow’ marked the beginning of a conservation programme which continues to this day. I returned to Te Anau in the following summer and reared a further 6 takahe chicks.  Many improvements were made to the models and equipment.   

In July 1985, 3,000 hectares of Crown Land near Te Anau was declared a scientific Reserve and made available for the takahe conservation programme. I was made officer-in-charge of this new area where I set up more permanent facilities for the Takahe hand rearing programme, with the help of other wildlife staff.  The area became known as the Burwood Bush Takahe Rearing Unit and still operates today.  Over the years,many of the hand reared takahe have been moved to predator free off-shore islands around New Zealand.  Some birds remained as breeding birds at Burwood Bush in fenced in predator free areas.  Others were sent into Fiordland.

‘Alpine’  turned out to be a girl and she successfully bred with ‘Snow’ at the Te Anau Wildlife Park in November 1986 at 4 years of age.  Two eggs were successfully hatched.  She spent her entire life at the Te Anau Wildlife Park, as an embassador for takahe. I finished my involvement in the takahe programme in the early 1990’s.

Then in 2007 I was unexpectedly reunited with ‘Alpine’.  I was invited to her 25th birthday celebration.  ‘Snow’ and ‘Tussock’  had long since died.  I was now living  in Queenstown (188kms away). At 25 years of age, she was now a grand old lady.  In the wild, takahe dont normally live more than 14 years.  On my arrival at the Park, I was greeted by excited local school children and some of the local conservation staff.  A birthday cake had been made for her out of grass with 25 candles. Unsurprisingly she didn’t seem too interested in the cake and didn’t seem too upset by the excitement around her. I am sure she didn’t understand what all the fuss was about and I was just another human face in the crowd.

I had just started a new job with Johnstons Coachlines in Queenstown and one of my regular journeys was taking tourists to Milford Sound. From the summer of 2009, I began making regular visits to see ‘Alpine’  telling my passengers about her interesting and important life.  She would always come down to the fence to greet us. On my visits I would give her several tussock tillers (blades of tussock grass) which I had freshly pulled.  This was a real treat for her because she was now too frail to pull these tillers from a tussock herself.  However, she was still able to stand on one foot and hold a tiller in the other while peeling the outer layer to get at the tender inner flesh.

Sadly, on 25 February 2010, Alpine died at 27 years of age.  I was so pleased that I was able to see her regularlyduring the last year of her life.  She is the oldest takahe to have ever lived and her legacy lives on.

Takahe chicks with new fibreglass model parent. "Alpine', 'Tussock', and 'Snow'.

On 15 December 1982, the first takahe egg to start hatching was moved from the incubator to the model adult takahe which was equipped with a speaker attached to a tape recorder.  I continued to intermittently play adult takahe calls to the hatching takahe.  The chick completely emerged from the egg at 8.10am. 

The body of the takahe model was made of fibreglass and the beak was made from painted polystyrene.  The body was covered with a pukeko skin complete with feathers.  Four arches were cut in the body of the model for the chicks to come and go.  To  keep the chicks warm, the inside of the model had strips of woolen sock hanging down from a removable lining and the model sat on a heated vinyl electric pet blanket.

The other 3 chicks were all hatched by 18 December and were all put together under the model takahe. The chicks were fed using a puppet which was a solid model takahe head, again made of polystyrene.  Its beak was pushed into a porridge like mixture of foods which stuck to the beak and the chicks pecked at this food.  

Sadly at 2 weeks of age one bird became ill.  Tests carried out by the local vet revealed that the bird had salmonella.  Under the vets instruction, all 4 birds had to be rehoused in a very sterile temporary brooder lined with newsprint.  They had terimycin (antibiotic) put in their drinking water.  The sickly bird stopped eating and died several days later.  The autopsy revealed that the chick died from complications resulting from an intestinal blockage.  The blockage was a mass of grass fibres.  The other 3 chicks were given a clean bill of  health and returned to their original brooder.

The remaining 3 chicks grew quickly and soon problems with the hand rearing model and puppet design became apparent. As the chicks got larger, stronger and more competitive for food, they began inadvertently eating the soft polystyrene beaks of the model and puppet.  They were also getting too big to fit through the holes in the side of there brooding parent model, so they would push it over and climb inside.  In addition to this they were pulling out the feathers from the brooding model. They were also regularly pulling the speakers out from the model and puppet.  So I quickly set about making changes to the puppets and models to make them more durable.  I made new brooding models that were made entirely of  indestructible fibreglass painted to resemble adult takahe.  They were hung so they could be raised as the takahe grew.  The speaker was glued and sealed into the head.  The new feeding puppet consisted of a two piece wooden beak set, a top beak for the forefinger and a bottom beak for the thumb that were again indestructible and could be used like tweezers to easily pick food items up.  The rest of the puppeteer’s hand and arm was covered with a blue sleeve of material and the speaker hidden in the palm of the hand.  It was all designed for easy cleaning and durability.  In fact these very models are still being used today, 18 years on.  Changes were also made to their housing (brooder). Viewing peep holes were replaced with directional one way glass and the brooders were divided into two compartments so the birds could be rotated daily into a clean area.

Puppeteer feeding the takahe

The local school children in Te Anau were asked to name the 3 remaining chicks.  They were eventually called ‘Tussock’, ‘Snow’, and ‘Alpine‘. It was now January 1983, and my work was done.  I had to return back to the National Wildlife Centre.  ‘Tussock’,’ Snow’ and ‘Alpine‘ were left in the loving hands of Alan (Arnie) and Connie Wright. I was to return the following summer to rear more takahe chicks.

Trialling the hand rearing equipment on the 5 pukeko chicks in November 1982

Takahe continued…

Well, firstly let me apologise for taking so long with the update.  I have had a few issues to sort out but hopefully everything is now sorted.  As I said in the first blog, I was going to talk about a very special takahe who was to become known as “Alpine“ but first I have to set the background to her story.

As I said in my last blog, the takahe was rediscovered in 1948 but little real hands on conservation happened until 1981 because a lot of research was going into the causes for the species decline.  By 1980 the population was estimated to be little more than 120 birds so this was to mark the beginning of some serious conservation work.  It was to be multi-faceted with predator control work, deer control, and captive management.  My personal involvement with takahe began in the summer of 1982 as an aviculturalist.  I was asked to trial a hand rearing programme for takahe to be carried out at the Te Anau wildlife Park at the foot of the Fiordland Mountains in the South Island.  At the time, I was a trainee aviculturalist at the National Wildlife Centre Mt Bruce in the North Island.  I was just a single 22 year old at the time.  I was to spend 3 months at Te Anau between October and December 1982. 

In October I crammed my few personal belongings into my MG sports car.  There was little room left for my trusty companion, “Dougal” who was a very large Labrador, but I wasn’t going to leave him behind.  We crossed on the inter-island ferry and made the two day journey down to the small township of Te Anau. It was an uneventful trip apart from being a little uncomfortable, especially for Dougal who had to make do with a small space in the rear hatch of the car.

When I arrived, I was met by the “Arnie” and “Connie ” Wright who lived at the Wildlife Park and who were in charge of looking after the birds.  Over the convening years, Arnie and Connie would prove to be like second parents to me. I quickly settled into the small staff quarters and set about organising myself for the job at hand.    Much of the specialised equipment to be used had already been prepared by Colin Roderick who suffered an untimely death just months before my involvement. 

The idea was to hand rear a small number of takahe using puppets which would look like adult takahe in special wooden enclosures where the chicks would be unable to see the puppeteer, me.  This would hopefully ensure the takahe chicks  would not negatively imprint on humans but would remain normal takahe.  I was eager to test the equipment before I received any takahe so I decided to do this with a common close relative to the takahe, a bird called a pukeko, a much slimmer but similar looking bird.  Five hatching pukeko eggs were taken from a nest on a local farm and brought to my facilities.  But time did not permit me to rear them beyond 2 weeks of age because of the arrival of the takahe eggs.  Although the temporary rearing of the pukeko showed no problems, this was not to be the case with the more robust heavy-weight takahe chicks.

A necessary addition to the equipment needed was a small number of broody bantams, essential to keep any eggs warm in the event of power failure which was a surprisingly common event.  The best 4 sitters were housed in specially made compartments in the garage being used and were regularly let out to “powder their beaks” in newspaper lined boxes.  They would be fed and then returned to their nest of plastic dummy eggs.  Occasionally the hens would require some gentle persuasion to get them off their charges.  Two were ultimately rewarded for their diligence by briefly sitting on a takahe egg but they were never to see their “ugly ducklings”.

I was fortunate to be able to be involved in the collection of the 4 takahe eggs.  Four of us took the 10 minute helicopter flight from the Wildlife Park into the spectacular Fiordland mountains.  Uplifting of the eggs could’nt  have been more expertly timed with 2 starting to hatch.  On arrival at the Wildlife Park, the two hatching eggs were put into incubators equipped with small speakers in order to play takahe parental calls.  The other two were placed under the two lucky broody bantams. And so the story of “Alpine” and her siblings had begun.

To be continued….

Takahe (Porphyrio mantelli Hochstetteri)

In the depths of New Zealands largest National Park, Fiordland at an altitude of 3000 feet , living amoungst  the snow tussock grasses is a unique bird.  It was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in 1948 by Dr Orbell in a valley later to be known as takahe valley.  Today there are only 300 individuals making it one of the most endangered birds in the world.   1980 (32 years after its rediscovery) marked the beginning of my contribution to takahe conservation but that is a story for later.

They are heavy, weighing in at around 3kg, with deep blue and green plumage that hangs loosely from their bodies, more like hair than feathers.  They are designed for warmth rather than flight to insulate them from the cold.  Unable to fly, they swiftly move through the tussock on their thick red legs.  Their clumsy lolloping gait belies their speed, with stubby rounded wings outstretched for stability and white fluffy backside on display for all to see.  The large red beak is surely a warning that this is a bird not to be messed around with, but only those of us privileged enough to have handled this fantastic bird without due regard to ones well being, have experienced first-hand the extraordinary power and dexterity of its beak.  Quite capable of drawing blood, being bitten is comparable to being pinched with pliers.

The takahe uses its beak, its strength and low centre of gravity to pull out tussock tillers (blades of grass) which forms a major part of their diet.  It requires considerable power to remove a single tiller which they appear to do with ease.   They hold the tiller in one foot and peel the sheath covering the base end of the tiller before biting off the exposed end.  This is labour intensive and the birds spend much of their day feeding.  It is easy to see where they have been feeding by the trails of discarded tillers and distinctive fibrous droppings.

Their vocals range from a repetitive delicate hoot when in close proximity to their family to a loud goose-like honking when communicating long distance.  In the spring, the takahe gather tussock tillers and busy themselves building several trial bowl like nests under tussock plants before settling on a final site.  One to 3 turkey sized eggs are laid and both parents share incubation.  At 26 days, the chicks are vocally communicating with their parents from the egg and emerge on day 28, wet and exhausted.  Spring weather in takahe country can be harsh with frequent snow and sub zero temperatures.  These conditions  can be fatal for young takahe.

Newly hatched takahe chicks are covered in black down, their only blemish being a contrasting white tip to their beak.  This probably acts as a target for the parents when feeding the chicks in dark undergrowth or at night.  The parents provide the chicks with tussock pieces and insects which they give beak to beak.  It is quite clear that takahe learn much of their behaviour from their parents, such as gathering food.  During spring and winter, takahe dig under the snow in search of hypolepis fern rhizome (root).  All going well, takahe can live for 14 to 15 years in the wild and much longer in captivity.

Next month I will talk about some of the conservation work being done for the takahe and I will also talk about a bird that is very special to me.

Regards

Martin