Conservation Projects > Buff Weka

Buff Weka

The Buff Weka only exists in the wild on the Chatham Islands at present. This is an environment in which they thrive, with a population in excess of 60,000 birds.

They provide an ecological management dilemma due to their predatory nature and the fact that on islands they eat eggs and chicks of other threatened species. One way this has been controlled is by allowing local people to hunt the birds for food, in a controlled harvest.

The Buff Weka existed on the East Coast of the South Island around 1900. They could be found in many areas of native bush and scrublands in Canterbury and Otago. Their numbers began to steadily decrease just after the turn of the century, and by 1940 they were extinct in the Eastern South Island.

Fortunately the sub-species survived, due to 12 birds having been relocated to the Chatham Islands in 1905. These 12 birds multiplied to form the population of 60,000 that we see today on the Chathams. Attempts have been made in the past to relocate the birds back to the mainland at Arthur’s Pass and Banks Peninsula, however both efforts failed. Recently the Buff Weka have been reintroduced to Central Otago, on an island in Lake Wanaka, and now to Canterbury, here at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve

In August 2005 a team of volunteers from Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, the New Zealand Conservation Trust, and a local Christchurch vet travelled to the Chatham Islands in search of the Buff Weka.

Their aim was to capture and transport a population of weka that could sustain a captive breeding programme here at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve. The expedition was aligned with the goals of the Department of Conservation and their Weka Recovery Programme. The stated goal of the programme is to reintroduce all weka taxa to their traditional range as a significant component of mainland ecosystems, including bringing the Buff Weka back to the South Island.

The group spent a week on the Chatham Islands, based in Waitangi, the main township. Before embarking on the expedition the group had received permission from the Department of Conservation and the landowners where they sought to capture the weka. Traps were designed and built by members of the group to allow the use of bait to lure the birds. The bait used was dog roll, fish heads, and fresh meat. Eventually 18 birds were captured in the traps and by hand. Fourteen of these birds were selected and the other four were released by into the area in which they had been captured.

The birds were transported back to Christchurch by aeroplane where they were quarantined for six weeks before being released here at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve on October 3, 2005.

The future of the Buff Weka on the South Island is now in the hands of Willowbank Wildlife Reserve and the programme at Te Waipounamu in Central Otago. These birds have a strong homing device, presenting the initial challenge of keeping the birds in a predator free environment for breeding purposes. This is essential, as ferrets and rats are known to raid Weka nests and eat the eggs or young chicks.

Willowbank Wildlife Reserve and the New Zealand Conservation Trust intend to create a successful breeding programme that will produce offspring, which can be used to re-establish the Buff Weka in the Canterbury region. This is a gradual process that will take many years and considerable intervention from experts in the field to be successful.

Willowbank Wildlife Reserve and the New Zealand Conservation Trust in partnership with the Christchurch City Council plan to release the offspring of the Buff Weka into the Styx Mill Conservation Reserve, in a predator free area. This reserve is part of a 40-year vision that will see the area along the Styx River become a wildlife corridor through the combined effort of the council, private and commercial interests, and the local community. It is hoped that the birds will flourish in this semi-natural setting, and eventually they will be released into the wild to fend for themselves.


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