New Zealand opens first 'kiwi hospital' for injured birds

New Zealand on Friday opened its first hospital exclusively treating kiwi birds, and vets have already nursed the first patient back to health—a chick nicknamed "Splash" that tumbled into a swimming pool.

New Zealand fights to save its flightless national bird

New Zealand's treasured kiwi birds are shuffling around Wellington's verdant hills for the first time in a century, after a drive to eliminate invasive predators from the capital's surrounds.

Boosting kiwi repopulation efforts

Releasing a higher number of kiwi into large predator-controlled areas could increase the success of efforts to help their survival in the wild, new research shows.

Gaps in genetic knowledge affect kiwi conservation efforts

Kiwi are iconic birds that have been severely impacted by deforestation and predation from invasive mammals since the arrival of humans in New Zealand. The remaining kiwi can be split into 14 clusters that are now treated ...

page 1 from 3

Kiwi

Kiwi are flightless birds endemic to New Zealand, in the genus Apteryx and family Apterygidae.

At around the size of a domestic chicken, kiwi are by far the smallest living ratites and lay the largest egg in relation to their body size of any species of bird in the world. There are five recognised species, all of which are endangered; all species have been adversely affected by historic deforestation but currently large areas of their forest habitat are well protected in reserves and national parks. At present, the greatest threat to their survival is predation by invasive mammalian predators.

The kiwi is a national symbol of New Zealand, and the association is so strong that the term Kiwi is used all over the world as the colloquial demonym for New Zealanders.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA