National Kiwi Hatchery

A bit pricey for a tour of the hatchery (CA$42.50) but I figured I can’t leave New Zealand without seeing a kiwi! And you can’t really see them in the wild because they’re so nocturnal and quite endangered.

Took the city bus up to the hatchery, and met another solo traveller on the bus, an American, Kylie, who was staying at the same hostel! She didn’t have cash for the bus so I used my bus card to pay for her haha

Cool little tour of the hatchery tho! Very unique birds, not only can they not fly but they basically don’t have wings. And very poor eyesight even though they’re nocturnal, so very acute sense of smell and hearing. The males incubate the eggs after the females lay them, and they mate for life, about as monogamous as humans are.

Baby kiwis in the wild have a survival chance of about 2%, as these types of kiwis are basically abandoned by their parents as soon as they’re born (they’re ‘precocious’ birds so know everything they need to right after hatching). The hatchery then collects the eggs from the burrows before they hatch, hatches them and raises them until they’re big enough to be released back into the wild and defend themselves. This increases the rate of survival to about 60%

Saw some kiwis in the artificial night area, where they’ve switched night and day so people can see them. No pictures allowed to not disturb the birds with flash. However our tour guide was unclear about when we could and counts take pictures so I (and a few other people) got photos of the baby kiwis in the hatchery and feeding part which was not dark. Apparently no photos of any kiwis, not just the dark room oops!

Lots of fun facts about the birds and the hatchery process, where they’re all tracked with codes and the parent birds are kept track of as well

Saw a kiwi!Read more