"Evil" ferret kills white kiwi chicks

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Two rare white kiwi chicks are among seven kiwis killed by an "evil" predator at Pukaha Mt Bruce National Wildlife Centre.

The three chicks and four adult birds died since March in the unfenced, 942-hectare reserve north of Masterton in a spike attributed to a "rogue ferret causing havoc", centre manager Helen Tickner said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/6857 ... a-mt-bruce

[Amber Calman]

That's sad.
the predator is not really "evil" though, it is just following instincts.

A white kiwi are not albino are they?

[Steps]

Ferrits/ stoats dont have instincts .. yeah they do sry...if it moves kill it...and the next one and the next.
I do not understand why the law was changed for these and other invasive / evil predators are legal to keep/ sell and not even have to registrar or have permits to ensure they are correctly kept.
Oh yeah thats right.. the boom yrs of the early 80s.. freedom of choice, user pays, free market pressures and start up of a pelt industry... that since collapsed...
Cynical?... hell yeah

In their own environment, ok not evil.. maybe... here in NZ.. EVIL

[Neil Fitzgerald]

It is not legal to have a pet ferret in NZ.
The instinct to kill more than they can eat and cache the rest is a very good one if it means they, and their young can survive a period of harder times.
Some of the comments at the bottom of that article are typically depressing. Lots of blame for DOC putting these rare white kiwi at risk on the mainland, rather than at a fenced or island sanctuary. I think if there is any question for DOC it would be why the recessive white genes appear to be being expressed so much more frequently at Mt Bruce than at other sites? Genetic mismanagement? Deliberate perhaps, because white kiwi are such cute draw-cards?

[Byrd]

I think if there is any question for DOC it would be why the recessive white genes appear to be being expressed so much more frequently at Mt Bruce than at other sites? Genetic mismanagement? Deliberate perhaps, because white kiwi are such cute draw-cards?

all five white kiwi hatched there are probably produced by the same pair of birds (two of them in fact were found together in the same nest burrow). The father - I think it was, from memory - came originally from Little Barrier Island and carries the white gene. All the white kiwi came from wild-laid eggs in the reserve, not from captive birds. The first three were hatched in incubators from eggs taken from burrows.

[Byrd]

Ferrits/ stoats dont have instincts .. yeah they do sry...if it moves kill it...and the next one and the next.
I do not understand why the law was changed for these and other invasive / evil predators are legal to keep/ sell and not even have to registrar or have permits to ensure they are correctly kept.
Oh yeah thats right.. the boom yrs of the early 80s.. freedom of choice, user pays, free market pressures and start up of a pelt industry... that since collapsed...
Cynical?... hell yeah

In their own environment, ok not evil.. maybe... here in NZ.. EVIL

Of course mustelids have instincts, and they are not evil. They are simply animals.

And it is not legal to keep ferrets or other mustelids without a permit.

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Yes, the white birds came from LBI, and there are still white birds there.
The fact that the Mt Bruce ones are "wild" bred doesn't mean much when you have a small reintroduced population. If the population is so small that recessive genes are being expressed at a much higher than normal rate, and there are other defects cropping up a bit too often (I hear), doesn't it raise questions about the health and size of that gene pool? As a reintroduced population, doesn't it point to an inadequate founder population? 28 birds transferred from LBI, and not all of them will have contributed to the new population. I might be a bit rusty on this, but as it is a recessive gene, both parents of the white birds must have it. If 2 out of some proportion of 28 brought the gene with them, it either isn't a rare gene at all, or that population is not diverse and therefore probably not representative of much or healthy—i.e. inbred.

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Yup, Pat got it, 1 and 2.

[Jan]

A 'very nasty' skinny ferret squirmed through the wire of my daughter's boy rabbit and guinea pig
garden run one night and savaged both of them. The rabbit didn't have a mark on him, apart from
his tail being bitten off but the poor G pig had a huge gash in his neck. This was over 20 yrs ago,
I ought to say.
We got a live trap from somewhere and set it in the run with the run doors open, baited with steak. The first
night we caught a hedgehog. The 2nd night we got the skinny ferret. It went to Christchurch City Council
to be killed and mounted for a visitor centre display. So that shows that they do return for the kills.
Another family at around the same time lost their pets in a similar way.

[Amber Calman]

Our house cat killed a weasel that my dog chased in to his outside run. We need to get some traps.