The founders of premium mānuka honey brand Haddrell’s of Cambridge have secured regional support to translocate kiwi to their retired sheep and beef farm near Waitomo.
Rick and Moira Haddrell have worked hard to prepare Mangatiti for kiwi. Photo: Chris Gardner
Rick and Moira Haddrell, who sold the brand to Prolife Foods in 2015, later purchased the 470-hectare Mangatiti farm.
They are now working with the Department of Conservation (DOC) and Save the Kiwi to become the first private landowners in the region to translocate kiwi onto private land.
Save the Kiwi is backing their application to DOC to receive the first of up to 250 kiwi next year.
“Waitomo is one of our priority sites to get birds translocated to next season,” says Save the Kiwi operations manager Tineke Joustra.
“We are hoping to create a corridor leading to Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari.”
They also have the support of Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari and Ōtorohanga Kiwi House and Wildlife Park for the project.
Helen Hughes, Chief Executive, Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari
Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari hosted the Haddrells for a kiwi handling course last year.
“It’s always exciting to see new conservation projects coming on,” says Sanctuary Mountain chief executive Helen Hughes.
“It’s great seeing others investing in getting prepared.”
“It will be fantastic to release kiwi in our back yard,” says Kiwi House operations manager Julian Phillips.
The Haddrells spent their first five years at Mangatiti retiring the land from sheep and beef farming and preparing it for beehives, and their second five years preparing the farm for kiwi.
Originally from Taihape – the Gumboot Capital of the World – Moira trained to be a teacher in Palmerston North before teaching in Matamata in the 1980s where she met her husband Rick who was farming.
Moira then taught at St Peter’s Catholic School, Cambridge, in the 1990s.
“In October 1993 Rick came home with this cool idea of setting up a bee keeping business,” Moira recalls.
“I gave him until Christmas.”
The business started with 15 bee hives.
“Little did I know it would morph and grow bigger than I thought it would,” Moira says.
Rick and Moira Haddrell with a map of Mangatiti. Photo: Chris Gardner
By the time they sold in 1995, they had 5000 hives.
“I would have people ringing up saying I would like $1 million worth of honey.”
The couple hope to receive the first kiwi from either Maungatautari, near Cambridge, and Lake Rotokare Scenic Reservice in Taranaki.
“When Save the Kiwi brought its team to the farm, they said it was perfect,” says Moira.
“It’s summer safe.”
The farm, west of Waitomo village, receives about two and a half metres of rain per year, creating ground conditions that kiwi can get their beaks into for feeding on invertebrates, native fruit, berries, leaves and shoots.
The area was known for a wild kiwi population, with kiwi song last heard in 2023.
The Haddrells held a community engagement day last year to get everyone on the same page, including councillors, iwi, and neighbours.
The project started with the couple putting bee hives on the farm and planting mānuka with funding from Waikato Regional Council to support the bees.
“They were so happy to have the land reclaimed and stop the farm animals from pooping into the headwaters of the Waipā,” says Rick.
The Mangatiti Stream feeds into the Waipā then Waikato rivers.
Mangatiti is an old sheep and beef farm planted in manuka. Photo: Chris Gardner
The couple built a DOC hut style hut, complete with internal bathroom, from which to base themselves from for a few days per week.
From there they have planted 350,000 mānuka bushes across the farm.
The beekeeping operation, managed by beekeepers Don and Amy Brill from Tīrau, has been what Moira describes as a “bit of a fizzer” with a sharp fall in honey prices.
“The price was nearly $100 per kg of unprocessed mānuka honey, now it’s $10 per kilogramme,” she says.
The land is currently earning them “a couple of hundred grand” in carbon credits through the Emissions Trading Scheme which they are reinvesting back into it.
“It’s sort of our retirement thing; we don’t work for money anymore. It’s the right thing to do. The farm is regenerating back into native bush,” Rick says.
The couple have also dealt with the incursion of non native species.
“In the first three years we shot 700 goats,” he says.
They have placed countless traps to rid the farm from rats and stoats and soon noticed native birds and insects returning.
“It was silent before, but by destocking we soon started to see what the land could be,” Moira says.
“We have heard morepork and weta.”
“Little did we know that years of doing the right thing would create the ideal spot for kiwi,” Rick says.
Moira Haddrell with beehives at Mangatiti. Photo: Chris Gardner
