The West Coast Wildlife Centre at Franz Josef Glacier welcomed a new addition on Christmas Day - the 50th Okarito rowi kiwi chick to hatch this season.
Weighing in at just 316g, 'Eggnog' was a perfect hatch, taking five days to emerge from its shell after 77 days of incubation.
A further nine eggs are quietly incubating, with up to 65 eggs expected to hatch at Franz Josef this season.
Rowi are the rarest kiwi in the world with fewer than 450 birds left alive in the wild, and are found only in the Okarito kiwi sanctuary.
Since opening in late 2010, the West Coast Wildlife Centre has hatched 278 rowi kiwi chicks and 109 Haast tokoeka, in partnership with the Department of Conservation and Te Runanga o Makaawhio.
Kiwi husbandry manager Nicki van Zyl said that after hatching, eggs were transferred to pest-free islands before being released back into the forest at Okarito, once they were less vulnerable to predation.
Rowi threatened species status was recently downlisted from nationally critical to nationally vulnerable.
"It has been a wonderful and extremely rewarding conservation journey over the last seven years," wildlife centre owner Richard Benton said.
The West Coast Wildlife Centre was judged by Lonely Planet as one of its top 12 favourite new places to visit in New Zealand.
In October it opened a brand new $250,000 indoor Tuatara Encounter.
