Mature Kiwi dies after dog mauling

Bird Recovery Centre's Robert Webb with a dead mature female kiwi which was killed by a dog.

A puppy or small dog is thought to have caused the death of mature female kiwi in Northland.

The female bird weighing in at 2.25kg was discovered lying motionless in a paddock near Riponui, 10km northwest of Hikurangi, on Thursday about 6pm.

The land owners came across the mauled bird as they returned home and rang the Native Bird Recovery Centre.

Robert Webb, from the centre, said the bird was delivered still alive and it was placed under some heat lamps. However, 20 minutes later the kiwi was dead. There were no puncture marks in the stomach area but instead all the feathers had been pulled out.

Mr Webb said the lack of puncture wounds indicated a puppy or smaller dog wasresponsible as they could not get their jaw wide enough to get a decent bite.

"It's most upsetting because this is a large mature breeding female. Right at the moment they are laying eggs," Mr Webb said.

"This means when you wipe out a bird like this there is no more eggs next season and it reduces the number of breeding pairs."

He said there was so much work being done in terms of predator control and with landcare groups and an incident involving a dog destroyed all the good work.

"The message doesn't seem to be getting through and people always say their dog would never do anything like kill a kiwi. But they all have the potential no matter how big they are."

Mr Webb was delivering the kiwi to the Department of Conservation in Whangarei yesterday so that the bird could be checked to see if it was micro-chipped. Local iwi would then be contacted to see if they could make use of the feathers.