Kiwi Te Manu Ahurei

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Kiwi Te Manu Ahurei

Objectives

This is a special opportunity to learn more about our shy national icon by observing the endangered kiwi in a natural and protected habitat at Te Puia.

This particular workshop runs for two hours and is centred on six -year-old Kenny and four-year-old Colorado at the on-site Kiwi Display House.

Kiwi Keepers will share with groups how this non-breeding pair have their own personalities, their feeding habits and the reasons behind their species rapid decline.

The workshops also provide an insight into Te Puia’s successful kiwi breeding programme that incorporates the Maori values of nature.

Thus, students will begin to understand what makes the kiwi so unique and loved by all New Zealanders.

“In understanding the need to protect they secure their own future role. One day the people we impart this knowledge to will be the guardians,” says teacher, Poihaere Knight.

Learning activities

The enclosed kiwi habitat behind one way glass allows students to study and identify the kiwi’s main features and lifestyle.

Kiwi keepers, who are passionate about their “babies” will teach how the male, not female incubates the egg as well as other interesting unknown facts.

Students will discuss why the kiwi is a national icon and its’ cultural significance through history and tradition; how the introduction of foreign mammals became detrimental to its’ survival; make observational drawings and understand the important task of caring for kiwi in captivity.