Are kiwis normally that light colored when they're young? I agree, it is a cute little thing.

Nah, its either an albino or isabeline colour variation.

News last night said it is not an albino. Sure is cute though.

Von Gruff.

reputedly 1 in 100,000.

since the vast majority of wild-hatched kiwi die before they get to adulthood the chances of seeing one in the wild are about zero.

This one is the distant progeny of a white one released on a predator free island 100 years ago.

Still pretty cool tho.

Gidday Guys,

Another bloody blonde chick. I bet that one has bugger all brains either. Put them down at birth I reckon

Happy Hunting

Hamish

A$$hole

Von Gruff.

For the benefit of Non-NZers -
without human intervention the wild kiwi population in New Zealand will largely disappear in the not too distant future,

Predation by mustelids - stoats and ferrets -, cats , dogs and wild pigs has reduced the wild population to an aging adult group rearing insufficient young to adulthood to replace the adult population. It is beleived that some 95% of wild-born kiwi chicks die before they reach 12 months.At that rate you can see how the population is static but facing a major decline once those adult birds reach old age .

Kiwi live for about 35-40 years in the wild so the population will go from a reasonable number down to virtually none over a short period - say ten years due to that inability to replace the adult numbers with new adults.

There are several very good captive breeding programmes here . The best-known is probably the Bank of new zealand Kiwi Recovery programme whereby eggs are uplifted from radio-tracked parent birds in the wild and the eggs are hatched under controlled conditions. The chicks are raised to a weight of 1 kilogram , then released into safe areas to grow on to adult size before being released into the wild , or into pest-free areas.
Once adult size the kiwi can pretty much fend off most pests except dogs so the hard part is getting them to adulthood.

The white chick isnt an albino , more a genetic abberation from a white ancestor of 100 years ago. Makes it pretty rare but it still is "just" another kiwi.

I hunted stewart island many years ago and feel priviliged to have seen fourteen kiwis over the duration of the 2 week trip.

every now and then a government does something right.

How neat that they will survive.

Rich