Ocean LifeNGO
A Record 30 Hutton's Shearwater Chicks Survive in a Fenced Kaikoura Colony Built for the World's Only Alpine-Breeding Seabird
by Hutton's Shearwater Charitable Trust · HQ 🇳🇿 New Zealand
0chicksChicks surviving in the 2024/25 season (record)as of 2025-03-21 · may be outdated
0adult birdsAdult birds returned to the Te Rae o Atiu colony, 2024/25as of 2025-03-21 · may be outdated
The Hutton's Shearwater Charitable Trust, formed in 2008, works to save the endangered Hutton's shearwater, which breeds only in the Seaward Kaikoura Ranges. Its main tool is the Te Rae o Atiu colony on the Kaikoura Peninsula, behind a predator-proof fence, where chicks were moved from the Kowhai mountain colony and hand-fed until fledging. In the 2024/25 season about 90 adults returned, 42 eggs were laid, 32 hatched and a record 30 chicks survived (reported by ACAP in March 2025). The trust is still posting colony news, most recently in January 2026.