A Northland woman has pleaded guilty to owning a dog that killed four kiwi during a spate of wildlife deaths at an isolated bay last year.

Rose Paraha, 55, admitted the charge laid by the Department of Conservation when she appeared in the Kaikohe District Court last week.

Court documents show the birds were killed around December 27 at Wharengaere Bay, on Purerua Peninsula in the northern Bay of Islands.

Paraha is due to be sentenced in January.

The dog, identified from saliva found on the dead birds, was a female pitbull-cross named Heaven.

Wharengaere Bay has been a hotspot for kiwi maulings for several years, with DOC estimating 20 deaths caused by dogs last year alone.

Two dogs were seized from Paraha's home by council animal control staff in January this year, but RNZ understands only one could be linked to the dead kiwi by DNA testing.

The other dog was returned.

It is not the first time Paraha has been in court for owning a dog that killed wildlife.

After an earlier spate of kiwi deaths, in 2019, she pleaded guilty to owning a dog that caused the deaths of six kiwi.

Some of the dead birds were found on the lawn outside her home.

On that occasion she was convicted and ordered to pay $300 in reparations.

No fine was imposed because she did not have the means to pay.

The dog, which had been allowed to roam freely, was destroyed.

Last year's kiwi deaths at Wharengaere Bay include nine between late January and early March, four found dead on the beach in November, and the four found on December 26 and 27.

Purerua Peninsula is home to one of the biggest populations of North Island brown kiwi in the country, and has the highest kiwi call count recorded in New Zealand.

The peninsula also boasts a major community- and hapū-led conservation initiative, Predator-free Purerua-Mataroa.

Elsewhere in the Bay of Islands, at least six kiwi were killed in Ōpua Forest, near Paihia, in 2023.

Post-mortem examinations found the Ōpua kiwi had been mauled by dogs but the owners were never identified.

Another spate occurred at Wharau Road, east of Kerikeri, in 2015, when at least eight kiwi were killed.

In that case, two owners were fined for failing to keep their dogs under control and three dogs were destroyed.

In 2021, a Russell man with previous convictions relating to roaming dogs was fined a record $4500 for owning a dog that caused the deaths of two kiwi.