MPs Barbara Kuriger and Tama Potaka with, right, Tom Roa and Ngatai Rauputu at the opening. Photo: Sigrid Christiansen
Sigrid Christiansen
Ōtorohanga’s Kiwi House celebrated the opening of a wing last weekend, and was able to highlight a successful breeding programme which is saving a giant wētā.
The Māhoenui giant wētā – which by 1962 was marooned on gorse on a Māhoenui farm – is now thriving in the new Kiwi House wing in an environment designed to help it multiply.
The wētā is one of the world’s largest insects, measuring up to 7cm and weighing approximately 15 grams.
Its new home features an automated data system which provides up to the moment statistics and controls temperature.
Kiwi House manager Jo Russell explained there was “quite a trick” that happens in nature to get the wētā to reproduce.
“They need a period of really hot nights, and then a barometric pressure drop.
“It’s warm enough, and it’s going to rain, so the soil will be soft enough for the eggs to hatch. Those are the triggers we are seeing with this species.
That’s what we needed to replicate.
“When we didn’t get results in the first year, we began to experiment, and we varied one factor at a time until we got it right.”
The facility feels chilly – it is intended to replicate conditions at Māhoenui.
The opening last weekend was attended by conservation minister Tama Potaka and King Country-Stratford MP Barbara Kuriger.
Also present were, iwi representatives including Tom Roa, historian Rovina Maniapoto, Pera Macdonald and Marina and Ngātai Rauputu, on whose land the Māhoenui giant wētā was originally identified.
Giant wētā numbers have plummeted as a consequence of the introduction of mammals and possums into New Zealand and their conservation status is listed as threatened – nationally critical.
It is thought they were once present throughout lowland forests in Waikato – so the discovery of a population the Rauputu family farm at Māhoenui in 1962 was regarded as significant.
The Conservation Department subsequently bought the land and turned it into a reserve where goats and gorse are protected.
Gorse – another introduced pest – provides a sanctuary from rats, hedgehogs and possums and browsing goats encourages regrowth.
Marae in the Piopio, Āria and Māhoenui areas – the Mōkau ki Runga hapū – gifted the name Taonga o Kawakawa – the treasure of Kawakawa – to the new wing.
Kawakawa is the name of the land on which the Māhoenui Giant Wētā Scientific Reserve is sited.
The originally discovered population holds the genetic diversity of wētā that once ranged throughout the Waikato.
Yet at the reserve, wētā face threats from introduced predators and fire – so the new facility will help future proof the species.
Mōkau ki Runga hapū, and the Ōtorohanga Kiwi House began working together with the conservation department three years ago on a plan to protect the insects. A first group of wētā of 12 adult wētā were the moved to the Ōtorohanga Kiwi House to begin a breeding programme. In May last year they were joined by another 10.
