Baby kiwi Manawa has been released into a nocturnal enclosure within Te Puia.

The chick is the first from the Kiwi Conservation Centre in 15 years, born from a recently established pair. Manawa is now in a nocturnal enclosure that manuhiri (visitors) can view on a Te Rā tour.

Manawa’s feathers were sent to Massey University for DNA testing to determine his gender and a gender reveal cake cut at Te Puia last week confirmed Manawa was a boy.

Kiwi Conservation Centre manager Tracy Johnson said Manawa’s parents were in an off-display breeding enclosure in the Whakarewarewa Geothermal Valley.

The successful chick-hatching process involved removing the egg from the nest after 40 days of incubation by the male kiwi, then transferring it to Gallagher Kiwi Burrow, Taupō, a specialist kiwi incubation and kiwi hatchery run by Save the Kiwi. There it underwent a further 40 days of artificial incubation and it hatched on November 13.

“Manawa returned to Te Puia in mid-December, settling in really well, and can now be viewed in one of our nocturnal display enclosures in the Kiwi Conservation Centre,” Johnson said.

“We are absolutely delighted to have reached this milestone and look forward to making a positive contribution to the preservation of our taonga through establishing further breeding pairs.”

Kiwi have been resident at Te Puia since the early 1970s, initially as a rehabilitation centre for injured kiwi that were received from the wild.

The original nocturnal house was built in 1976, and over the years has delighted many visitors keen to view and learn about kiwi. Te Puia was also part of the national breeding programme until several years ago and released several kiwi into predator-safe areas in the wild.

At the end of 2019, the new state-of-the-art Kiwi Conservation Centre opened, offering a viewing and educational experience for manuhiri. It incorporates an education area and conservation staff conduct several presentations throughout the day, offering visitors an insight into the many aspects of kiwi conservation and the work that Te Puia is involved in.

This includes research projects with the Department of Conservation (DoC), captive breeding and dog aversion training.

Te Puia is one of 13 parks and zoos in New Zealand that are part of the co-ordinated captive management programme for North Island kiwi that is overseen by the DoC and Zoo and Aquarium Association Australasia.

Each year the co-ordinator of the programme makes recommendations on transfers of kiwi among all holders to establish new breeding pairs and fill advocacy roles in nocturnal displays, and releasing a small proportion of kiwi into predator-safe areas in the wild.