1,000th Chick released back to the wild

Rotorua, 3 February, 2012 – Milestone kiwi chick number 1,000 was today released back to the wild of its native habitat in the Waimarino Forest near Ohakune in the North Island.

Born on 24 September 2011, the chick was the 1,000th hatched at Kiwi Encounter at Rainbow Springs Kiwi Wildlife Park in Rotorua as part of the BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust programme.

The release of this precious national icon back to the wild signifies 16 years of dedicated work by the Kiwi Encounter team nurturing eggs brought in by Department of Conservation staff and volunteers from around the North Island.

The chick hatched the day the All Blacks beat France for the first time on their road to victory, and has been named 'Mille' which translates to 1,000 in English.  During the six week rugby tournament Rainbow Springs welcomed 2,000 French supporters to the park, the largest number of international visitors.

Now just over four months old the healthy 1077g chick is strong enough to survive back in the forest.

Kiwi Encounter Kiwi Husbandry Manager Claire Travers says, "The chick is absolutely beautiful, nice and plump with gorgeous feathers.  She's a great food forager with a penchant for cicada pupa."

Mille was dad Kahu's 25th egg to arrive at the hatchery.   Male kiwi are radio tagged for identification because they are the ones that incubate the eggs in the nest.  The female leaves the nest once the egg is laid.

Rainbow Springs' involvement in kiwi conservation began in 1995 with the arrival of an orphaned egg and the hatchery has grown over the years to become the largest kiwi hatching facility in New Zealand, successfully incubating and hatching brown kiwi eggs from around the North Island.

"We're very proud to be playing such an important role in the conservation of kiwi.  The arrival of the 1,000th kiwi at Kiwi Encounter is a great achievement and goes a long way to ensuring the survival of these amazing birds," Ms Travers says.

BNZ Operation Nest Egg™ (O.N.E) is a powerful tool to reverse the decline of key kiwi populations.  Eggs and chicks are harvested from nests to save them from stoats and cats. The young kiwi are returned to the wild when they weight about 1kg, big enough to fight off these predators. More than 1600 kiwi chicks have been returned to the wild since the programme began in 1994, with captive facilities and hundreds of field workers from DOC and community groups throughout the country contributing to its success. The BNZ Operation Nest Egg™ egg harvesting-chick rearing-return to the wild technique was developed for kiwi through research funded solely by BNZ and is now also used in other species recovery programmes.

Rainbow Springs, Fairy Springs Road, Rotorua
For further information or to arrange an interview contact: Tracey Mehrtens, 4pr This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it "> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 09 489 2229 or 021 430 606