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Related: About this forumHow to Raise the Rarest Kiwi
Thanks to a long-running plan to rear their chicks in captivity, these national icons are bouncing back from the edge of extinction.
A five-day-old kiwi chick
Kami the kiwi, five days oldWest Coast Wildlife Center
ED YONG 4:30 AM ET
FRANZ JOSEF, NEW ZEALANDWhen I first see the kiwi chick, I briefly wonder if Im actually looking at a real animal. Its a grapefruit-sized sphere of fluff with an adorably short version of an adults long beak. When it sits still in its dark, red-lit enclosure, it looks indistinguishable from some of the plush toys that fill New Zealands gift shops.
Unlike the chicks of most birds, the kiwis surprisingly mobile and self-sufficient, even though it hatched just six days ago. Its too early to tell if its male or female, but it already has a name: Kami, after a Maori word that means force of nature. And it will soon have company. In the room next door, 22 more kiwi eggs are incubating in an artificial chamber.
Im in the West Coast Wildlife Center, a stark black-and-lime building in Franz Josef, on the western flank of New Zealands South Island. Most of the people in this town have come to trek the glaciers that smear the landscape. But some are here for the kiwis. As part of Operation Nest Egg, a 23-year project to save New Zealands most iconic animal, rangers and volunteers capture the eggs of wild kiwis, incubate them in captivity, and rear the chicks till theyre large enough to fend for themselves.
For millions of years, they had little to fend against. The only land mammals in New Zealand were bats, so kiwis evolved to fill the niche that's typically occupied by shrews and hedgehogs, becoming honorary mammals. With their tiny vestigial wings, bristly feathers, and heavy marrow-filled bones, they cant fly. Then again, they dont need to. Their attention lies not in the meters above the ground, but in the inches below it, which they explore with long bills that have nostrils at their tip. They use their exceptional sense of smell to probe for worms and insects, and they move with a steady deliberation that belies their bumbling exterior.
More:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/09/how-to-raise-the-rarest-kiwi/540387/
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How to Raise the Rarest Kiwi (Original Post)
Judi Lynn
Sep 2017
OP
Rhiannon12866
(205,286 posts)1. Thanks for posting this good news!
And I agree that they are adorable!
hunter
(38,311 posts)2. Kiwi "etiquette" sounds rough.
Beware the claws.