Hoping for the best for kiwi

Here's a heart-warming story that involves Whangarei Heads school children writing letters of advice on how to live well and a local furniture maker building 50 boxes for a kiwi breeding scheme in deepest Westland.

Whangarei Heads Primary School pupils have written love letters of the survival kind to kiwi and to the handlers who will be transporting or caring for the birds and chicks in a Franz Josef-based breeding and relocation scheme.

Local resident and Bream Head Conservation Trust member Geoff Pike made and painted the boxes for the southern scheme, with the school's Year 5 and 6 class writing a card to place in each one.

"Dear Kiwi, I have some advice for you. Keep away from pests and roads. Get a mate and stay in a safe environment. Stay healthy and live long. From Dom," wrote one child.

"Dear Handler, Please give this cute kiwi a safe home and give him lots of fat bugs and worms, do not feed it flies. Give this flightless bird a blessing. Thank you for doing your job. From Cole," wrote another.

Julianne Newbold teaches the class that is helping send the South Island kiwi safely on their way in life.

Dear Kiwi, I have some advice for you. Keep away from pests and roads. Get a mate and stay in a safe environment. Stay healthy and live long. From Dom.

Dominic Valent-Hay

Ms Newbold is currently undertaking a science teaching fellowship with the Royal Society of New Zealand, and hopes to help develop a scrubby bush area adjacent to the school into a living science block. There, pupils will learn about native wildlife, plants and have "authentic learning experiences".

The school's pupils live within the kiwi zone guarded by the Bream Head Conservation Trust and share in many opportunities for their environmental lessons to come alive.

In their wild backyard, hundreds of kiwi now successfully fend for themselves thanks to many years of hard work by the trust, Department of Conservation and other supporters of kiwi relocation and breeding programmes in the predator-controlled area. Most local families have been involved in some way with that project.