One clever dog has discovered a flock of endangered whio, or blue ducks, in part of the West Coast where they have not been seen for decades.
Tui, a golden labrador retriever, is trained to sniff out the protected birds.
She and her owner were surveying the Ten Mile Stream catchment in the Paparoa Ranges earlier this year when Tui found a feather.
After covering some rough terrain, Tui sniffed out seven whio including ducklings.
Her owner and Paparoa Wildlife Trust project manager, Glen Newton, told RNZ's Checkpoint programme when you have a great dog, it is not too tricky to find the endangered birds.
"The hardest bit is getting into the areas where the ducks live because they live in pretty tricky terrain all the time... imagine steep West Coast bush, steep streams, big boulders."
Twelve-year-old Tui has been working to find whio for most of her life and, though nearly reaching her retirement, she's still an expert.
"She's got a fantastic nose and you can see when she's working.
"When she gets onto the scent, her whole demeanour changes. She just becomes... a bit more intense with her work."
Newton said her method for making him aware of her finds consisted of a lot of tail wagging.
"When she gets onto the scent and close to the birds, the actual tail starts wagging in more like a number eight sort of pattern."
The whio were found in an area with only a small amount of predator control. They had not been seen there in a number of years.
"It is surrounded with a lot of other areas that have quite intense species control and we know there's whio living in those other areas.
"We're pretty excited. It looks like the birds, they're successfully breeding... and moving over into these new catchments that haven't had birds for a number of years. So it's really exciting that they're spreading."
Newton said the plan now was to focus on trapping and control to allow whio to continue to thrive.
"Whio are very vulnerable to stoat predation... our plan is to increase the intensity of the predator control in that area."
While like most dogs Tui enjoyed sniffing out all types of birds, Newton said he tried to keep her focus on the rare ducks.
"She gets praised when she finds a whio, but I basically ignore if she's trying to, you know, sniff out other things.
"She's very focused on her job. She's well trained, she's an experienced dog. She's been doing it for over 10 years now, so she knows she knows what the target is and she's very good at sticking to her target."
Despite the intensive nature of the work, he said there was not doubt Tui loved her job.
"She's a bred working dog, that's why I bought her ... she just loves working."
