rowi fun facts

The West Coast Wildlife Centre is a kiwi house that opened in 2010 at Franz Josef, which now undertakes the entire Operation Nest Egg incubation for Okarito brown kiwi (aka rowi). The ONE programme takes eggs from the wild, incubates and rears the chicks in a captive situation, and then the young birds are released, the aim of the programme being reducing mortality of chicks from introduced mammalian predators. Usually four young Okarito brown kiwi are on display in the nocturnal house (although there were only two when I was there).