The Weka Bird.
- Weka mainly eat invertebrates and fruit. They occasionally eat chitons and other rocky invertebrates, lizards, rodents, food scraps, carrion and the eggs and young of other groundnesting bird.
- Weka populations are subject to large fluctuations. Populations increase during favourable conditions and decline abruptly when food becomes scarce. Moist islands and those with rich soils support the most stable populations.
- The decline and destabilisation of weka populations on mainland New Zealand, which has resulted in legal protection, has inhibited mahinga kai in modern times. Some iwi today welcome conservation projects that would potentially enable the restoration of harvesting while others believe that the time for harvest has gone. The only place where the legal harvest of Weka can occur is on the Chatham Islands and on some islands around Stewart Island.
- Weka have demonstrated that under good conditions and with high food availability, they can be very productive with year-round breeding recorded at several sites. However, pairs in other stable populations breed once a year or less.
- Weka mate for life where the populations are territorial, but this is not so when the need for defence is less likely.
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