Kiwi sighting

After our glacier hike, we decided to stop by a local wildlife center where kiwis are hatched.  They are endangered all across New Zealand and face a lot of predators, including stoats (that were brought in to control the rat population, but instead decided kiwis are tastier).  The ‘kiwi rangers’ track and tag kiwis, monitor their heartbeats to determine if they are active, nest sitting, or killed.  If they are nest sitting, the rangers will go pick up the eggs once they are laid and return them to a hatchery for incubation in safety.  They wait till the young kiwis are 1 kg (large enough to more successfully fend for themselves), then release them back to the wild.

A kiwi egg is proportionally huge - 20% of the female kiwis weight.  It would be the equivalent of a human giving birth to a 6 year old!

We got to see one in a forested enclosure where the lights were so dim (they are nocturnal) that we could barely make him out at all.  They are cute, and shy.