Kiwi found dead in Northland DoC trap

A kiwi was found dead inside a DoC trap by a woman walking the Omahuta Puketi forest track.

• A kiwi was found dead on Saturday inside a Department of Conservation trap in Puketi Omahuta forest.
• DoC said it would review this trap network to ensure the traps were being used according to best practice.
• 17 kiwi have been found dead or injured in the same or similar traps since 2008.

A woman on a forest walk has found a dead kiwi inside a Department of Conservation pest trap - the 17th kiwi death or serious injury of its kind since 2008.

Sarah, who asked to remain anonymous, was walking in the Puketi Omahuta forest track in Northland on Saturday when she made the grisly discovery.

“It’s an offbeat goat track, it’s cute, there’s kiwi everywhere throughout there, that’s why there are so many traps out there to help them.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love DoC and I love what they stand for and what they do, but clearly this [trap] is doing the polar opposite of what it should,” Sarah said.

A kiwi was found dead inside a DoC trap by a woman walking the Puketi Omahuta forest track.

DoC Kiwi Recovery Group lead technical adviser Emily King said DoC traps were “thoroughly tested ... to minimise any interaction from non-target species like kiwi”.

DoC records show 16 kiwi have been found dead or seriously injured in DoC traps (or similar traps) from 2008 until 2024.

“In 2022 there were more than 100,000 DoC series traps in kiwi habitats across the country, the proportion of incidents with kiwi is small,” King said.

A North Island brown kiwi. Photo / 123rf

Northland conservation group Kiwi Coast says the DoC mustelid traps “have specially sized entrance holes and off-set mesh walls inside so kiwi cannot enter or poke their curious heads and long bills straight into the traps”.

Sarah said the kiwi wasn’t tagged and looked like it had only died in the previous 24 hours.

“It’s stuck its head in it [the trap]... like a hole where the bugs go, they burrow naturally.

A kiwi was found dead inside a DoC trap by a woman walking the Omahuta Puketi forest track.

“It’s unfortunate that the traps they set there on the ground to help [the kiwis] are actually so easy for them to get caught in,” Sarah said.

The dead kiwi was found in a DoC 200 trap, which is designed to catch rats, stoats and hedgehogs. DoC uses smaller and larger versions of the same trap.

DoC operations manager Bay of Islands Bronwyn Bauer-Hunt said they were thankful that the death of the kiwi was reported to DoC and said staff would “take any necessary steps to reduce the chance of it occurring again”.

“Deaths of this kind occasionally happen, but they are extremely rare given the number of traps kiwi could come across in their habitats.”

Without predator control, only 6% of kiwi chicks survive to adulthood. With proper predator control, this can increase up to 60%, Bauer-Hunt said.

DoC said it would review this trap network to ensure the traps were “following best practice”.

Bauer-Hunt said it was likely that it was an adult brown kiwi, which has a “non-threatened” status, dependent on continuing conservation efforts.

The sex of the kiwi is unknown at this stage.

DoC is yet to assess the cause of death and whether the kiwi would have died instantly.

“However it appears the kiwi bill has been trapped,” Bauer-Hunt said.

The population of brown kiwi has been increasing thanks to predator control efforts, Bauer-Hunt said.

“Without this ongoing effort in predator control, we would see brown kiwi populations begin to decline again.”

A spokesperson for Predator Free said kiwi were “a huge factor“ in the designs of the traps.

“A lot of care has gone into the design of the trap boxes to prevent any bycatch of species that aren’t specifically targeted by the trap.”

A kiwi was found dead inside a DoC trap by a woman walking the Omahuta Puketi forest track.

Last year, leg-hold traps, different from DoC traps, were behind two Coromandel kiwi fatalities.

Sarah was also surprised at how difficult it was to find someone willing to help her with the dead kiwi, saying she called different government and council departments multiple times.

“I called about four different people ... they just pass you off to the next [person].

“I think I was most disappointed by that, they didn’t really want to know about it.”

Eventually, she spoke to DoC and was advised a senior ranger would be sent out to assess the trap, she said.

Jaime Lyth is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, focusing on crime and breaking news. Lyth began working under the NZ Herald masthead in 2021 as a reporter for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei.