New Zealand biodiveristy

For millions of years New Zealand had no land based mammalian predators. People arrived to New Zealand around 800 years ago. Since then, a number of non-native species have been introduced, including rats, cats, stoats and other terrestrial mammals. Nowadays, these introduced predators are threatening the survival of many New Zealand endemic species.

Endemic species are plants and animals that can only be found in one specific region. For example, kiwi, tuatara and tui are endemic to New Zealand.

Photographs of three New Zealand endemic animals; kiwi, tuatara and tui.

Kiwi birds

Kiwi are an iconic bird of New Zealand. They are nocturnal, flightless and omnivorous. Kiwi eggs are six times bigger than an average bird of its size. In fact, female kiwi lay the biggest egg in proportion to body size of any other bird.

There are five recognised species of kiwi: brown, little spotted, great spotted, rowi and tokoeka. Unfortunately, all kiwi species need to be managed to prevent them from going extinct. The main threat for kiwi are introduced predators, particularly stoats.

Stoat on grass