Best Kiwi Exhibits

[BedildaSue]

Good day, world! It's me!

I went to the Bronx Zoo this lovely Memorial Day weekend and was thrilled to see a kiwi exhibit! Sadly, I understand that these are incredibly shy birds and are difficult to see in zoos. Alas, while I was happy to know I was passing by a kiwi, I was unable to spot it.

Does anyone know which zoos have exhibits where it is easy to spot a kiwi, while still giving the kiwi enough places to hide? Also, how SHOULD kiwis be kept in captivity?

 

[Chlidonias]

Good day, world! It's me!

I went to the Bronx Zoo this lovely Memorial Day weekend and was thrilled to see a kiwi exhibit! Sadly, I understand that these are incredibly shy birds and are difficult to see in zoos. Alas, while I was happy to know I was passing by a kiwi, I was unable to spot it.

Does anyone know which zoos have exhibits where it is easy to spot a kiwi, while still giving the kiwi enough places to hide? Also, how SHOULD kiwis be kept in captivity?

kiwi are very easily stressed, and your standard nocturnal house is not a good environment for them (far too noisy, people with camera flashes, knocking on the glass, kids yelling, etc). They do seem to be far more prone to noise-related stress than a lot of other nocturnal animals. A kiwi's primary instinct in response to unpleasant situations is to freeze, so in most kiwi exhibits the kiwi will remain motionless in a corner or under cover until the disturbance is gone. Their typical response to a camera flash, for example, is to freeze on the spot -- the person understandably thinks the kiwi doesn't mind the flash and keeps on doing it -- after the person has gone the kiwi will typically skulk away and not come out of its burrow for the rest of the day or even several days (depending on the temperament of the individual bird). Most people do not see kiwi in enclosures due to this, but in fact they are naturally very active birds. They should be spending most of their time on the move, mostly foraging for food, and they can become very friendly to people they know (by smell). If you are patient enough and can wait for quiet periods then you should be able to see a kiwi, but I have seen them frozen on the spot for an hour when scared -- and I'm not sure how busy nocturnal houses get in America (I'm assuming, very). The other way would be to find out when they feed the birds -- in stressful environments the kiwi will still come out to feed, but will typically bolt down as much food as it can and then retreat to its hiding spot again.

The only really satisfactory way to display kiwi in a nocturnal house is to have the exhibit guided or at least monitored, and to ensure that everybody remains quiet and there are no cameras being used. In such a situation you can get very good display kiwi but it is costly (i.e. staff wages, unless it is done with volunteers).

 

[DavidBrown]

The San Diego Zoo had a pretty nice nocturnal kiwi house. The kiwi was sometimes active and you could see it walking around. It was large and the kiwi had plenty of hiding places. They tore it down to build the new outback exhibit and there is no indication, unfortunately, that they will build a new exhibit.

The Smithsonian National Zoo has a "meet a kiwi" program where they bring the kiwi out for people to see it. Unfortunately I missed it when I visited that zoo, but the pictures that I've seen look cool.