Russell's kiwi now outnumber the people who live in town

Kiwi around Russell now outnumber the people who live there. RNZ reported on October 29, 2026, that the volunteer Russell Landcare Trust estimates about 2,500 of the birds on the peninsula, roughly three times the town's permanent population. The trust has spent more than 20 years trying to clear rats, possums, and stoats from about 3,000 hectares, with 7,500 traps and 10,500 bait stations.

Technical advisor Nik Minchin said 2,000 hectares are now possum-free and 1,000 hectares rat-free, so volunteers are pulling traps from those patches, fixing them, and setting them farther up the peninsula. In the township the catch is down to about one rat a month, even with a trap every 25 metres. The rubbish tip has gone more than three months without a rat. At Tapeka, the last possum was eight months ago and the last rat six months ago.

General manager Ella van Gool said other parts of New Zealand have rat-free pockets, but she does not know another mainland town this close to clearing a whole settlement. North Island weka, locally extinct around 1940, were reintroduced by the trust in 2002. Residents describe a much louder dawn chorus. At Orongo Bay Holiday Park, manager Shane Maddren counted seven kiwi in one evening, four of them juveniles, and the park has taken televisions out of the cabins so guests watch the birds instead. Earlier this month Foundation North committed $1.2 million over three years to four Bay of Islands groups. The regional council said it would add $1.8 million, and the Department of Conservation $475,000. Van Gool said the last rat would not end the work. Boats and swimmers can bring predators back, and a later hope is enough connected bush for kōkako. The 2,500 figure is the trust's current estimate.