Hunter bags an egg

Model and NZ icon Rachel Hunter eased a kiwi egg from out of a Hawke’s Bay hillside on Tuesday.

The Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust patron was visiting the Trust’s property in the Maungataniwha Native Forest in inland Hawke’s Bay as part a bid to experience for herself the different stages involved in kiwi conservation.

She had earlier helped transport three young chicks from the Kiwi Encounter hatchery at Rainbow Springs in Rotorua to the Cape Sanctuary south of Napier, where they are raised until they are large enough (at approximately 850grams to one kilogram in weight) to defend themselves against predators.

She then airlifted two such chicks from Cape Sanctuary to Maungataniwha, where she released them back into the wilderness from which they had originally been taken as eggs.

Finally, she flew back to Kiwi Encounter from Maungataniwha to hand-deliver the egg she had helped lift – completing the circle of conservation she had started just 24 hours previously.