Whanganui man Allan Anderson has entered the 2017 Conservation Innovation Awards in a bid to get funding for hihi feeders designed to help save the endangered bird.
The awards offer a prize grant of $25,000 for the winners of each section - the engaging young people and communities, predator free New Zealand 2050 and the open category.
Mr Anderson's entry pitches a species specific feeder station.
"NZ has more than its share of endangered bird species, none more so than the hihi, a bird with no close relatives anywhere in the world," Mr Anderson wrote on his entry page.
"All efforts to save species involve intervention, sometimes in the form of supplementary feeding.