Maungatautari kiwi season.
Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari is celebrating its booming kiwi population, but its chief executive warns its own survival in threatened.
Just checking – one of the last kiwi to be sent to a new home this season get a health check from Tori Budd, left and Jenny Collie. Photo: Roy Pilott.
Helen Hughes told The News there was no more than seven weeks of operating cashflow, and the eight full-time rangers were at risk of burn-out after the most challenging year of operations ever.
It’s not the first time – The News revealed in June 2024 that the sanctuary was facing a cash flow crisis.
“The risk of staff fatigue and exhaustion is our biggest vulnerability, without a question,” Hughes said.
“My team is out on chain saws constantly responding to fence breaches, and it can be at 2am, but we only have two chainsaws,” she said
There was no extra money to employ more rangers, who patrol and monitor the fence around the clock, maintaining a safe environment for 35 different bird species.
The 3400-hectare sanctuary on Tari Road is home to at least one kiwi per hectare, bringing it close to holding capacity. The target was reached nine years earlier than originally planned, expected to be in 2035, Hughes said.
However, the past 12 months had been its toughest in its 25-year history, with 22 fence breaches – more than double the normal amount and the most recorded in a single year.
In 95 per cent of cases, a fence breach was caused by a tree falling, and that included some of the country’s oldest rimu, more than 700 years old, Hughes said.
A six-week trapping programme commences immediately within a 500-metre radius of a breach
Sanctuary Mountain Mangatautiri chief executive Helen Hughes is turning around financial challenges threatening the fenced conservation area and its thriving Kiwi population. Photo: Michelle Lachmann
“It’s not like mother nature serves us up one fence breach at a time. When you get significant winds, you are going to see more trees fall,” she said.
“This is conservation at scale, it’s significant – there is nothing else like this in the world. And, we are right on the back door of Hamilton, Cambridge and the central North Island,” she said.
About 200 community volunteers are a crucial part of operational work, helping care for bird species, or the 730 different types of native flora and fauna at the sanctuary, alongside predator monitoring and checking trap lines.
Ranger staff turnover was high due to the relentless demands of the job, Hughes said.
She called on Waipā district and Waikato residents to support the sanctuary and its work by becoming advocates.
“Come up and be a part of this, get involved, or just come up for a coffee. We love it when the community gets involved. It’s vital to the sanctuary’s long-term survival,” she said.
Maungatautari Kiwi Season Photo: Lucy Schultz
Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari Kiwi Translocation Season Mahi 2026. Photo: Lucy Schultz
Tama Potaka. Photo: Nehenehnui
A request to the Government for $3.2 million over six years was declined this month.
Conservation Minister Tama Potaka said, in a letter, the financial environment was tough on all conservation work. There simply wasn’t enough money to go around, but he valued the sanctuary’s efforts to species’ recovery in Aotearoa.
Cambridge News 21 May 2026
Hughes said it was frustrating. Funding from local, regional and central Government had never increased, despite the sanctuary translocating 800 kiwi to several different predator-free projects around the country, including Wellington, Taranaki and Tongariro.
She had relied on her banking and insurance corporate background to turn around the sanctuary’s finances – taking it from losing $50,000 a month to repaying its $250,000 debt and recording a $71,000 annual operating loss to the end of March 2026.
“We slashed costs, and increased revenue, and I have been very focused on creating a bedrock of financial strength here. We have set up an endowment policy and that’s the long-term game,” she said.
Additional income streams included tourist and cultural tours, a local shuttle service connecting the northern and southern side of the maunga, annual membership deals, the sale of nature and biodiversity credits, the sale of plants grown on-site at its new seedling nursery, alongside an endowment fund, community outreach programme and educational work.
“When I walked into the business, I didn’t know it was going backwards by around $50,000 a month. In that first year I started (2023), we recorded almost a $600,000 operating loss, she said.”
“When you consider our annual operating overheads are $1.8 million that speaks to some significant challenges and issues. I would say a lot of other conservation projects are probably not too dissimilar,” Hughes said.
If other funding wasn’t created, the sanctuary would have to cut back its work.
“We are a seed source of biodiversity for the Waikato, supporting its agricultural and horticultural industries” she said.
“If the central North Island is the food bowl of New Zealand then in order to grow food you need a seed source, you need to propagate seeds and grow them – and we do exactly that as our native birds spread out into surrounding areas.
“We are propagating seeds and growing biodiversity for the region, and we need residents’ support, more than ever now,” Hughes said.
Kiwi Season 2026 Photo: Lucy Schultz
Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari Kiwi Season 2026. Photo: Lucy Schultz
