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There has been an estimated 60 per cent increase in the kiwi population on the Tāwharanui Peninsula, according to the latest monitoring done by The Forest Bridge Trust.
Altogether, there are 19 monitored sites outside of Tawharanui Regional Park.
At one site, there were an average of 5.7 calls an hour recorded last year, compared to 9.2 this year, including both solitary individuals and pairs.
At a public meeting held in the Matakana Hall on June 21, trust ecologist Virginia Moreno said these numbers were achieved thanks to conservation efforts such as dog avoidance training, and predator control and trapping initiatives.
The first North Island brown kiwi were introduced to Tawharanui in 2006 and Tamahunga in 2023.
“The aim is for both populations to expand and eventually interact, allowing them to breed,” Moreno said. “When we carried out the first monitoring in 2021, we recorded an average of just 1.3 calls an hour and no pairs at all.”
Recent results have also recorded a pair in the Omaha Golf Club area, which may potentially be nesting nearby. For this reason, Moreno said dog training remained essential to ensure kiwi numbers continued to grow.
Alongside the kiwi monitoring programme, information on the Rodney Pekapeka Project, focused on bats in the Tamahunga area and funded by Auckland Council, was also presented.
“This project is in its first year and aims to raise awareness so that people know these species exist and can help protect them. The results have been positive, with the presence of bats detected in 20 of the 70 surveyed sites in the Tamahunga Ecological Area,” Moreno said.
