Volunteer researchers no longer need to brave three nights in the bush tracking kiwi bird calls.
The Department of Conservation has raised enough money to install digital devices on trees that will switch on during the night when the birds are active, monitoring their long, screechy calls.
Department spokesman Avi Holzapfel told NZN the devices can collected data for months and results will be more accurate than manually collected data.
"Kiwi are very secretive, very night active, very difficult to monitor," he says.
Listening to calls allows the department to notice if populations are declining, or increasing, and whether any birds are in trouble.
All populations of the iconic bird are threatened, Mr Holzapfel says.
NZN