Did you know that New Zealanders sometimes refer to themselves as “Kiwis”? They don’t mean the fruit, but instead the bird. Kiwis are national icons representing the unique wildlife and heritage of New Zealand. If you want to learn more about these birds, keep reading.

Kiwis are medium-sized, nocturnal birds that are native to an isolated island in New Zealand that had very few land predators. The Kiwi is a part of the Ratite group making it related to other flightless birds like ostriches and Emus. They became more like mammals with their unique adaptations of nostrils and camouflage. This made the Kiwi vulnerable to any new land predators that might appear on their island.

Kiwis are the icon of New Zealand as they represent their unique wildlife and heritage significance. There was even a flag proposed with the Kiwi on it, this flag featured a Kiwi with lasers coming out of their eyes with a silver fern. Kiwi birds also had the Kiwi fruit after them. The Kiwi fruit actually was named the “Chinese Gooseberries” before Kiwi, but since the fruit had a resemblance to Kiwis they changed their name.

Kiwis are in danger of extinction from 3 main factors: new predators on their island, loss of forests to make more farmland, and split populations. This led to only around 5% of Kiwis to even make it to adulthood. There are only around 68,000 Kiwis left in the wild with the population dropping around 2% every year. Some conservation efforts were made in order to maintain the population of Kiwis. Save The Kiwis are one of the main groups raising over $512,160 to help conserve Kiwis.

In conclusion, Kiwis are flightless birds and a national treasure to New Zealand and its people, and they even had a fruit named after them. However, Kiwi populations are dropping rapidly caused by new predators, loss of habitat, and fragmented populations. If you want to help the Kiwis, you can donate to this website or any other conservation organization.