As you would expect from an island with unspoilt terrain, Stewart is home to many species of bird including 20,000 of the endangered brown kiwi, the
flightless Stewart Island kiwi and the nearly extinct kakapo
parrot.
Though many species — such as the moa, a giant
flightless bird, and the Haast's eagle, with its impressive 10 - foot wing span — have gone extinct since European settlers arrived, countless others remain, such as the kakapo, the world's heaviest
parrot (which is also
flightless) and the tuatara, a reptile that was a contemporary of the dinosaurs and is now the last of its kind.