A cheeky, flightless bird that came back from the brink of disappearing altogether.

If you've been to Mou Waho, you've almost certainly met a buff weka — a bold, curious, slightly chaotic bird that will happily investigate your lunch, your bag, and anything else left unattended. What most visitors don't realise is how close this bird came to disappearing from the region entirely, and how much work went into getting it back.

These birds are walking around a Wānaka island like they own the place — because at this point, they do.

Wiped Out, Then Rediscovered on the Chathams

Buff weka once lived across Otago, but introduced predators — stoats, ferrets, cats — wiped them out on the mainland entirely. The only survivors were a population on the Chatham Islands, hundreds of kilometres offshore, descended from birds moved there generations earlier. For a long time, that was it: no buff weka anywhere near Wānaka.

Stevensons Island Gets the First Chance

In 2002, buff weka were transferred from the Chatham Islands to Te Peka Karara — Stevensons Island — where a purpose-built predator-free enclosure gave them a chance to breed without the threats that had wiped them out the first time. It wasn't smooth going: in 2009 a rabbit outbreak on the island drew in predators that killed several birds, and the weka had to be pulled off the island entirely before being reintroduced in 2013 once the threat was dealt with.

Moving to Mou Waho

As the population on Stevensons Island grew, young birds were moved out to the larger predator-free sanctuary of Mou Waho — and to a couple of islands on Lake Wakatipu as well. Mou Waho's size and isolation made it a natural fit, and today it's the best place on the lake to actually meet one: fearless, oversized, and entirely unbothered by visitors, because on this particular island, it genuinely has nothing left to fear.

A Small Island, A Genuine Comeback

It's easy to walk past a weka on Mou Waho and just see a strange, friendly bird begging for scraps. What you're actually looking at is a conservation success story that started with a population reduced to a remote island hundreds of kilometres away, and ended with these birds walking around a Wānaka island like they own the place — because at this point, in the best possible way, they do.

Want to meet one yourself? The full-day lake tour stops at Mou Waho, where the weka you'll meet are descendants of that very project.