The Brown Kiwi (Apteryx mantelli)

by Carly Oquendo·2 views·Updated Mar 28, 2022

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the brown kiwi,
otherwise scientifically known as Captain Rex mentally
this video
is about video footage analysis of a certain brown kiwi located at
arana Wildlife Park reserve
in Christchurch New Zealand.
The park is interested in providing quality enhancements
for the creature so that it can thrive and live happily in its captive environment.
For now
we'll take a look at some video footage,
analyze it,
explore it,
and then
use it to make quality suggestions about how
enrichment or enhancement activities can be provided to the animal in their care.
The brown kiwi
is a small scale re tight
that is native to New Zealand.
It is one of only a few such creatures in the animal kingdom
kiwi have been known to inhabit offshore islands for centuries,
but nothing is really known much about their history.
In New Zealand,
there are five
different types of species of Kiwi.
two of them have four separate categories.
The brown kiwi has a much larger population
and it is the only species that can be spotted outside of New Zealand.
A kiwi's natural environment
requires native woodlands,
pine forest,
swamps,
scrubs
and even rugged farming areas.
All of them can play a vital role
in the brown kiwis environment needs.
Brown kiwis are invertebrate predators
that hunt in the litter and soil of natural and exotic forests
as well as other ecosystems.
They forage for food at night
and then during the day they hide themselves behind decaying logs,
dense vegetation.
The brown kiwis
told variety of animal and
plant matter,
which includes earthworms,
beetles, the adult form and the larval form or baby stage
and various insects,
the leaves of fruit and several plant species
have been known to be found in their uh their their poop.
Recent research
shows that vegetable matter provides a great proportion of their nutrients than
once previously thought.
Kiwi enjoy discovering invertebrates
in the leaf litter
or just beneath the soil surface.
Using their highly developed senses of smell and hearing.
They capture the insects
and the prey
by probing their long beak into the ground
for
around the leaf litter
they manipulate
with their long beaks.
Kiwis are very opportunistic
and they have been recorded on occasion fishing
in shallow pools and streams for tiny eels
and freshwater crawfish
for proximal incubation behaviors.
What that means is
it is the only variety of kiwi
where the male will sit on the x
baby kiwis are not taken care of after they are born
and they're capable of moving around on their own
as soon as they're done hatching
once a baby kiwi hatches its on its own
and it's happy to be so
as they like to be
solitary creatures,
Their territory can cover up to 247 acres of terrain.
They like to use whatever is around them
to build nests.
The behavior we're going to see in the video
comes from arana wildlife park
and his looks at
A 32 year old male name
peru
to capture his activity.
There is a remote observation of video recordings
that were taken
by an application called zulu. I.
With zoo life, you're able to look at a variety of animals
using their automatic livestream web feeds
in order to see animal behavior, you wouldn't normally get to see
um after the zoo is closed and it is quiet.
This is especially good
method in order to study kiwi behavior
as they like to become active very late in the night when most humans
are asleep.
This is the video that was taken using the webcam footage at arana wildlife
bruiser.
After viewing the video
Two or three or four or five or even 15 times,
we were able to find a pattern of behaviors
that we could classify as focal behaviors or mainstream behaviors.
These behaviors were used primarily
for maintenance,
which is
eating, drinking, walking
um
and also exploratory behaviors which is also walking
sniffing
probing,
which is putting their beak up and down,
jabbing into
the
ground.
Each video showcases a distinct
vocal behavior or main behavior
that the animal is exhibiting. In the video
we have sniffing
which was the number one behavior
that was
executed,
hunting or probing, which means the beat going up and down
in the ground to find food,
walking,
eating,
feather cleaning or what they say is preening
sneezing
and shaking
after building a
a paper ledger
and putting a check mark.
Each occurrence or each happening
that occurred in the video,
we were able to find our
main featured behaviors
and
turn them into
frequencies or
the amount of time it happens over and over again.
How much percentage of the video
is involved in that behavior activity
here. We have a chart that shows the behaviors
and the frequencies that they did those behaviors.
So Peru did a lot of walking a little bit of the time.
He walked
15 times
to move himself around the habitat
to find food.
Peru also did a lot of probing
or plunging his beak up and down into the ground.
He did this activity
92 separate times.
At one point, peru shook his body very vigorously to remove dirt and debris from his.
For
another instance, actually two instances
we see Peru sneezing
uh as he is probing into the soil.
The main activity Peru did was sniffing
for worms and bugs
in order to find out their location so he could eat them.
He did this approximately 100 and 29 times
within the five minutes of the video
Because he was sniffing so well.
He found
11 chances
and he completed 11 instances
of eating some kind of material.
He didn't interact
with his body by preening or cleaning his feathers with his bill.
He did this one time.
So as you can see in this chart,
we discovered the percentage of how much he did each activity
in the video.
We saw him sniffing.
45% of the time.
We saw him probing,
32% of the time.
And we saw him walking
16% of the time.
The other behaviors,
eating,
training,
shaking
and sneezing
all Phil
Either at 4% or below
Throughout the course of the video.
So let's look at the behaviors one x 1
and see why the animal is doing it
and how we can better help the animal
promote behaviors of that type even further.
So we have the first behavior will discuss
his behavior A. Which is eating
behavior B. Which is walking
behavior C. Which is bringing
behavior D. Which is sneezing
behavior E. Which is probing
and behavior
F. Which is shaking
and the animal will do behaviors according to
its environment
both in captive environments as well as in a
feral environment
for a wild environment.
The sniffing was the number one behavior that the animal did.
The animal needs to sniff in order to
locate food.
The benefit of locating food
um outweighs the negative problem of having to have his head
to the ground by having limited eyesight against predators and predation,
hunting or using his beak to probe,
he has actually nostrils at the tips
of his bill and it helps him sniff out
the prey to locate it.
There is a problem with this though is that he can um
not determine the different sense,
he just knows that something is food and he'll ingest that
and he can get foreign bodies ingested in his body.
So for one thing the bill can reach the food, but it is also bad because he can,
he's not discriminate about what he's going to eat.
Sometimes
another behavior we saw a lot of was walking
and this is very good for the animal. He has very powerful muscular legs.
Um it helps him scratch, it helps him
of
escape
very swiftly by running.
Um He can use the walking in order to move around the exhibit and find food.
Unfortunately, it's his only way to travel. He does not fly
and so therefore um it is kind of a hindrance to only be able to walk.
So now that we know the three main behaviors that he's exhibiting in this video,
we will implement animal well being um for treatment of enrichment.
To promote this idea of animal well being, we need to know what it means.
An animal well being refers to an animal's ability to adapt to its environment,
whether it's wild environment or a captive environment.
We want the animal free of pain free of anxiety and discomfort free of
illness and if it does become sick or um it is likely to die.
We want it to be free of suffering from that
in order to promote these behaviors in a positive and effective manner,
providing absolute
amazing animal welfare for this species,
we need to implement three different enver judgment types,
a tactile or touch
enrichment,
a taste or food enrichment
and a smell or an old factory enrichment
in order to promote instinctual
um behaviors.
We want to provide different types of ground cover
that they would find in their natural environment.
Remember the forest,
remember the swamps? We can provide those within the exhibit in order to promote
different types of probing or hunting instincts.
We also need to provide large water stations so that the animal can indeed swim as it
does in the wild uh including hunting crayfish or
other food sources that can come from water.
We need to also provide
interactive food stations,
things that he can
use his long bill
to uh enhance those original instinctual behaviors as far as long,
slender holes that he can use to reach in or
she reach in with his bill and access the material.
He also needs access to nesting materials, um uh materials in order to build a house
um or to provide um security for himself. If he thinks he needs to conceal himself
for our food enrichment,
we'd like to move the feeding stations around the exhibit continually
in order to promote the idea of
things not always being in the same spot as they are
as they would not be in the wild.
Live food should be placed around the kiwi cages regularly.
It's okay to do um artificial diet, but he does need some live invertebrates,
some live bugs to prey on
to promote mental stimulation
and food variety is very important.
It's very important to provide more than just one or two different types of foods, uh
Also providing food protection is very, very important,
and finally providing the animal with something that he can um
used to move around.