They are being encouraged by the Department of Conservation to know where every kiwi is, and to work around those positions.

While most kiwi will scarper when they hear the logging crews approach, others, particularly males sitting on eggs, will stay holed up in their burrows.

DOC used its experience with logging operations in Waitangi Endowment Forest to educate a large turnout of forestry workers in Kerikeri recently, capped off by a bush walk during which DOC officials caught and microchipped two newly hatched siblings.

DOC Bay of Islands looks after the 550ha Waitangi Endowment Forest, which is being progressively logged and replanted for the third rotation. As manager of a commercial forest, DOC has an ideal opportunity to balance the needs of forestry and kiwi, says Ian Page, a forest consultant to Waitangi.

DOC estimates that between 20 and 30 breeding pairs of kiwi are within the forest. This figure was arrived at by listening to night calls, plus survey, capture and tracking using a certified dog and handler and monitoring equipment.

Between November 2008, and February 2009, seven kiwi were monitored within the Mt Bledisloe compartment of Waitangi Forest where logging was under way by a gang from Auckland-based HarvestPro. All kiwi survived the harvest operations, but three needed to be moved and one egg was uplifted for artificial incubation, with the chick released back into the forest six months later.

In Waitangi, transmitters were attached to all captured birds, so that pre-dawn scanning established where each bird was, and whether it needed moving before that day's logging activities.

The national kiwi population is estimated at 25,000, 8000 of which are in Northland. About one-third of all brown kiwi are found from coast to coast across the Northland peninsula between Whangarei and Kaitaia, a region which was extensively planted in pines during the 1970s and 80s.

If kiwi can get to 1kg in weight they can defend themselves from predators like rats and mustelids, but the high number of hunting dogs, permitted and outlaw, in the Northland forests means the kiwi life expectancy in the province is only 15 years, which is one-third of their allotted span. Farm dogs too, on properties adjoining forest and bush areas, pose a considerable threat to kiwi, because one bite and a shake kills a bird without flight muscles and not much breast covering.

HarvestPro supervisor Roger Leaming says the haulage operation costs $9000 a day to run, so even short disruptions can be expensive. But most kiwi seem to move out of the logging areas ahead of time because of noise and activity.

Forestry Environment group chair Geoff Gover, forest engineer for Hancock Forest Management in Northland, says that although marauding dogs do much more damage to kiwi than loggers ever will, for forest owners not to take protection measures would be irresponsible.

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