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Kiwi breeding pair separated

Former Kiwi Birdlife Park  wildlife manager Bridget Baynes with the beginnings of the park's new...
Former Kiwi Birdlife Park wildlife manager Bridget Baynes with the beginnings of the park's new kiwi-breeding enclosure, which is being entirely funded by visitor donations and which it is hoped will soon house a new breeding pair. Photo by Joe Dodgshun.
The Queenstown Kiwi Birdlife Park's amorous couple - the young pair of brown kiwis responsible for the four chicks that died this year - have been separated for now.

Former park wildlife manager Bridget Baynes, who now works for Doc in the Coromandel, recently told the Queenstown Times the pair had been separated over concerns for the health of the female, Tawahi.

"The keepers were worried that laying too many eggs might be harmful for the female ... so they have a little divider in their habitat, but they can still sniff each other face to face."

The two are set to be reunited at the end of July, and "going off last year's performance, we anticipate eggs", Ms Baynes said, laughing.

Four eggs produced by Tamanui and Tawahi, who are aged 5 and 3 years old respectively, hatched this year, but all the chicks died because of complications either during the hatching process or in the days following.

As a relatively young kiwi, Tamanui was an inexperienced father and did not incubate the pair's eggs as male kiwis are supposed to, leading to them being removed for artificial incubation.

The park is building a new kiwi breeding enclosure, which staff hope will be completed by the end of the year and is intended to be the new home of a third kiwi breeding pair for the park.

Ms Baynes did not expect the enclosure - which was entirely funded by visitor donations - to be finished by "the peak" of the breeding season, but said the kiwis generally bred all year round.

 

 

 

 

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