The North Island weka population is booming in the Bay of Plenty.

Numbers are growing and the birds are becoming more common in Rotorua and Whakatane, Weka Recovery group lead and senior technical advisor Rhys Burns said.

Weka are large, brown, flightless birds known for their feisty, cheeky and curious personality, Burns said.

“They are one of the few remaining natural avian species. They are omnivores. They can prey on birds and lizards but also eat a wide variety of fruit and insects.”

The native species are protected on mainland New Zealand after becoming critically endangered as a result of hunting.

Weka prefer habitats that include bush margins and rough farmland, where they can access fruit.

“They eat the fruits from native plants, and they move them around and excrete them quite some distance from the tree.”

A North Island Weka. Photo / DOC, Bruce Dix

Weka are likely found in about 5% of the North Island, a significant increase from 30 to 40 years ago when there were fewer than 1000 left, Burns said.

There is no accurate assessment of current weka numbers, but Burns was confident there more than 20,000 on the North Island.

For the past 20 years, weka have been expanding westwards in the Bay of Plenty, he said.

“They turned up in Ōpōtiki in the early 2000s around the township and then kept spreading from there and Whakatane.”

The birds had been seen in Murupara and around Lake Rotomara.

“The primary predators are ferrets and dogs, and probably to a lesser extent stoats on the younger ones,” Burns said.

“If you’ve got a high density of rabbits, you quite often have ferrets.”

More ferrets mean weka can easily decline into extinction, Burns said.

As curious animals, weka were often found near people’s houses.

“Many dog breeds are naturally attracted to weka because they run away and trigger that chase instinct.”

Their recent success in expansion can be accredited to their ability to cope with environmental challenges and breeding at a higher rate than mortality rates.

“They are breeding well, and they must be avoiding mortality or having a lower mortality than the number of chicks they are producing as a population,” Burns said.