So we, we had actually more birds in the reserve than we thought we would have. It turns out if you have kiwi in a pest free environment they do really well and better than we were possibly expecting. We had an incredibly busy week a couple of years ago where we decided to remove 50 birds out of the reserve. But do you have just one stand out? Do you have a most memorable day at work at Rotokare? You must have every day as a memorable day when you're working around kiwi, I imagine. we give them that fighting chance to start off with, get them large enough and then set them free. So once their above that 1kg they can protect themselves. Yeah, when they're small, so below 1kg, they're really prone to predators and those pests would be stoats, ferrets as well. They stay in there, the young chicks grow up to adults or sub-adults and once they're large enough, yeah we'll harvest the 20 or 30 birds a season and move those out to new sites.Īnd the idea with that is because a kiwi needs to get big enough to fight off predators. It's slightly different to a kiwi creche, as we kind of leave the birds to do it. So it sounds like you were running around at kind of a kiwi creche? Also to the Kaitake Ranges, and another site just outside of Rotokare called the Tōtara Block, privately owned site run by Forest and Bird.īrilliant. So, for the past four seasons now they've been moving birds out to the main maunga. And the reserve itself is a kōhanga, so a nursery for kiwi to grow and then repopulate the rest of Taranaki.Ī large part of my job was to catch birds within the reserve towards the end of the season and help move them out to areas (that are) well trapped and well protected. I was fortunate enough to get a kiwi ranger post at Taranaki Kōhanga Kiwi at Rotokare which is a joint project between the Taranaki Kiwi Trust and Rotokare scenic reserve. And you've worked extensively with North Island brown kiwi in Taranaki, right? Can you tell me about that? a summer in the Northern Hemisphere, followed by summer down here for a good few years before I actually moved down here about five years ago.īrilliant, so you've been chasing the sun for years as well. I've been a regular visitor here in the Northern Hemisphere winters. A lot of my dad's family came out here in the 50s and 60s and as a kid I came out here with my parents a couple of times to visit them and yeah, kind of fell in love with the place. I've got quite a long history of coming to and fro from New Zealand. I worked in conservation for about 15 years before I came out into New Zealand, mostly working on small islands seabird work and migratory bird work as well.Ī lot of that time was spent up in the in the Shetlands, which is off the top end of Scotland on the way to Norway. Somewhere between London and Cambridge for those of you who don't know England that well. ![]() So yeah, I'm from Harlow in Essex in England, originally. So where are you from and what brought you all the way over here? Now, those with sharp ears will be picking up a decidedly non-New Zealand accent. It sounds like you're the perfect kind of person to work at DOC. … I can hide away in the in the office when it's wet and miserable outside and then get to go out and play on the sunny days. Not too much rain, but the joy of bird work really is that you can't work with the birds and get them wet, as well as yourself. We're out there around about every two weeks, we get out to do the field work and we're out there for around about three days. So you've got some, yeah, really scrubby vegetation, leatherwood in particular is a big battle to just struggle through.Īnd are you out in the mountains in the sub-alpine area every day, or is there some desk work as well? And a lot of that work is in a sub-alpine environment. It's probably one of the most remote places in New Zealand and it ranges from above the treeline, about a thousand meters above sea level, down to sea level. And what kind of terrain is that usually? I'm based in Te Anau, and a large part of my job is based down in Southern Fiordland at Wet Jacket Arm Peninsula.Ĭool. I work for DOC as tokoeka kiwi ranger down here. So, Doddy, why don't you tell us about your job? He's a kiwi ranger, and he works in some of the most beautiful parts of the country. ![]() Yeah, I've been known as that since about six.Īll right! So, Doddy has one of the coolest jobs on the planet. And do people call you Chris Dodd? Should I? I'd like to welcome Chris Dodd, DOC Ranger and Biodiversity Lead. This episode of The DOC Sounds of Science podcast is all about kiwi. He kōnae ipurangi tēnei, e pā ana ki ngā Sounds of Science.Įvery episode we talk about work being done behind the scenes by DOC’s technical experts, scientists, rangers and the experts in between. Kia ora! I'm Erica Wilkinson and this is the DOC Sounds of Science podcast.
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