Lost kiwi species found in wild after 47 years

Up until now, we believed kiwi pukupuku/little spotted kiwi had gone extinct from mainland New Zealand. Our smallest kiwi is particularly vulnerable to introduced predators, and the last known sighting of a kiwi pukupuku on the mainland was in 1978. In the years since, despite targeted searching, we haven’t found any others.

Then, back in April, I received an email from a hunter we contracted for tahr control in the Adams Wilderness Area on the West Coast. The email included a short, blurry video of a kiwi looking for its next meal in a bed of fallen Dracophyllum leaves.