TRACEY DEARLOVE, Conservation Ranger, Department of Conservation, New Zealand: You can just see the egg there.

JOEL SARTORE, National Geographic Photographer: Oh yeah, I can. That is cool. Wow, you’re really good at finding these things. Holy cow.

TRACEY: I don’t know if my arm’s not long enough, so I’m going to have to saw some of this.

JOEL: So Tracey,you're going to grab the egg through that hole?

TRACEY: Yeah, I'm going to see if I can get in this way, because I could possibly grab it that way. But it's just if she's in the front of the egg, and I reach in, she might run over the egg. So I've just got to watch what she's doing.

JOEL: That's amazing.

TRACEY: They’re cool, eh?

JOEL: That is incredible, isn't it?

TRACEY: It's pretty cool.

JOEL: Wow. Is it warm?

TRACEY: Yeah. You want to feel?

JOEL: Yeah. Wow, it's warm. It's enormous.

TRACEY: It's huge, eh?

JOEL: That's so cool.

TRACEY: Compared to your hands.

JOEL: That's amazing. Very cool.

JOEL: I'm just amazed at this whole thing…that you were able to find it. That it's gigantic.

TRACEY: They're pretty amazing, eh?

JOEL: They are.

TRACEY: Pretty amazing birds.

JOEL: A little bird with an egg that big.

TRACEY: Cool. So we're all good.

JOEL: So are you going to check one of the birds to check the band?

TRACEY: Yeah, so I'll just pull it out really quickly and take note of the band.

TRACEY: She's a bit of a stroppy one. Sorry, love. She's real wriggly. They're not often this wriggly. She's a bit of a renowned stroppy one.

Hey…shhh…

JOEL: What are you doing right now?

TRACEY: Just checking her for a transponder, so a microchip. They get a microchip under their wing.

JOEL: That's the wing?

TRACEY: That's the wing.

JOEL: That's its – so it has a vestigial—

TRACEY: It's got a little claw under the wing.

JOEL: That’s the wing…

TRACEY: That’s the wing. So they get a little microchip under the wing.

JOEL: Wow.

TRACEY: Yeah.

JOEL: That's it. Okay.

TRACEY: Yeah?

JOEL: Yep. Okay, you're going to put her back in the hole?

TRACEY: Yeah.

JOEL: Okay. That's it.

TRACEY: That's it.

JOEL: That was amazing.

TRACEY: Cool.

JOEL: That's so cool.

TRACEY: They're pretty cool, eh?

JOEL: Yeah, that's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

TRACEY: It's pretty amazing when you see the eggs finally hatch and you see these little chicks come out and --

JOEL: Because of you.

TRACEY: And you know they've got a --

JOEL: Yeah. Yeah.

TRACEY: Good, safe life.

JOEL: I cannot believe how hard you have to work to find one nest. This took all stinking day to find one nest and one egg.

TRACEY: You've got to do it or else they'll just go extinct, so…

JOEL: They will, won't they? For sure if you didn't do this.

TRACEY Yeah.

JOEL They would go extinct?

TRACEY: For sure.

JOEL: There's not any doubt about it.

TRACEY: For sure, yeah. But we're really lucky. I mean the program's been so successful. We went from 150 and now last season alone we had 50 chicks. 60 chicks, actually. In one season, we produced 60 chicks.

JOEL: It is so nice to see something going the other way.

TRACEY: Yeah, for sure.

JOEL: You know how few times I get to see something like this where the numbers are going up?

TRACEY: Now we get the egg back.

JOEL: Okay.

TRACEY: And hope we don't fall down a large, steep hill on the way.

JOEL: You're in charge of the egg, so…

[both laugh]

JOEL: Okay. Hallelujah. There's the boat.

The eggs that Tracey and others collect go on to Kim and Catherine, who will help them hatch.  The chicks fly on an airplane, to a predator-free island, grow up carefree and return to the forest where Tracey first found them when they're big enough to defend themselves from invasive species.  The egg I saw Tracey lift from the nest hatched, but didn't make it back to this forest.  But fifty others did and their growing population is now between four and five hundred.  When it comes to rare animals, the Rowi Kiwi is a rarer success story.  And a perfect example of what makes New Zealand's natural history unique and worth saving.  Some very special creatures boarded the Photo Ark on this trip, many of which I never thought I'd get to in time.  Their images have been put to work, displayed in some surprising places.  Showing millions of people what we stand to lose while we still have the time to save them.