Injured Kiwi stays on at the old home

Auckland Zoo vet Dr John Potter and vet nurse Nicole Czerniak inspect Darkstar's foot after cutting away her cast. Photo / Dean Purcell

Darkstar, the laid-back kiwi, is on the road to recovery after a car accident in Northland left her with a fractured foot.

She has been recovering at Auckland Zoo's Centre for Conservation Medicine, where she became the first kiwi in the zoo's history to be put in a cast.

Vet Dr John Potter removed the brown kiwi's cast using a hand saw and scissors because the zoo's electric cast saw broke last year and has not been replaced.

But x-rays revealed Darkstar's "particularly nasty" fracture had not yet healed so she is back in plaster for another couple of weeks.

Dr Potter said the model patient was readjusting well to her old home, where she was hatched in 2007.

"She seems to remember her old zoo diet," he said.

"We haven't had to force feed her, which is very unusual for an injured kiwi."

Darkstar was released on to the Tutukaka Landcare Coalition kiwi conservation land area, near Whangarei, last year, and will return there once she has made a full recovery.

She was hit by a car in May but the car's occupants caught her and took her to the nearby Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre.

Department of Conservation biodiversity programme manager Phil Brown said kiwis were particularly prone to injuring their legs, usually in possum traps.

However, they could survive in the wild with only one leg.

Dr Potter said Darkstar would make a full recovery, although she may end up with a limp.

"Somehow we will have to teach this kiwi to look left and right before she crosses the road."

Mr Brown said drivers could run over a kiwi thinking it was a possum, so it paid to check.