Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

A couple of weeks ago our Kiwi Trust (Save the Kiwi) visited Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari (Waikato) – not just for a board meeting, but to see how a modern-day “muster” and translocation looks these days.   It reminded me of a restoration exercise in a huge garden!   Imagine having a sizeable territory of pretty cool forest, surrounded by a predator-proof fence. We’re talking about 3400 Hectares of safe habitat for all sorts of New Zealand Native/endemic species from a couple of Kakapo to Takahe, stitchbird and saddleback as well as noisy kaka.   And oh yes, there are more than 2000 North Island (Western) Brown Kiwi thriving in there as well.   Thriving is the operative word.   It certainly didn’t always go that well in the past: the decline of North Island Brown Kiwi was about 2% per year, which triggered the then Prime Minister John Key suggest we should have a go at turning -2% into +2%.   John MacLennan (Scientist and Trustee of Save the Kiwi) came up with the concept of