Piwi the Kiwi is hitting the treadmill not to lose weight but to restore his leg strength after breaking his legs in two separate accidents. This four-year-old bird is only half the size of a normal kiwi his age, so he had a slim chance of surviving the accidents.
Luckily, wildlife experts found Piwi and transported him to a wildlife park to mend his broken leg. Shortly after arriving at the park, Piwi broke his other leg. The vets decided to use a treadmill to help with Piwi’s recovery.
At first, Piwi wasn’t too thrilled to be on the treadmill, but the vets have said that his workout has drastically improved his muscle tone, and he has a great chance of surviving out in the wild again.
Source: Herald Sun
*sniffle* I fink i haz somefing in my eyez, what iz dis leequeed? Iz my eyez brokened?
*hanz citiKat a shamwow* – conga kiwiz on ur nawt sekkund commint.
danke!
Heeza heero for surviveng and hoomans so smart to hehabb dis way!
Awwww! That is soooooo cute! I feel bad that he got hurt to be cute though!
for the injured kiwi pic:
Is this grocery store checkout? I don’t do bags..or plastic..
is this the grocery store checkout line?
I don’t do bags… or plastic
Yay for Piwi!
Mehbee dis how Piwi broked hiz leg in teh furst place.
Oh, dis moovee meks me happesad!
Piwi iz a hansum birdee nao, doze hoomans dids good wiv him!
Rilly kewl!
I thought mabye he slipped on some shoe polish.
THIS VIDEO CONTAINS CONTENT FROM SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. IT IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE IN YOUR COUNTRY.
die sony die
awwwww *tear* I just love animals so much. <3
Stupid hoomans, they paying salry for 4 hoomans to hehabb silly birdee and I gonna eatz him when they dones…..
Awesome and full of win!!
We need more of this and less cats dressed up like people
Cannot access it. “Dieses Video enthält Content von Sony Music Entertainment. Es ist in deinem Land nicht mehr verfügbar.” – or to translate: “This Video contains content from Sony Music Entertainment. It is not available anymore in your country”.
like most Kiwi’s, not a big fan of tredmill thingy
“This video contains content from Sony Music Entertainment. It is no longer available in your country.”
yeshh. .. .. ahead.. ai can has kiwi 2 。。・♪
Holy heck! Can I nuzzle his feathers? Kiwis are so squee!
me name ish kiwi! go piwi go!
my name is kiwi! go piwi go!
Too much effort spent healing a freaking bird.
U are teh pleh!
Obvious troll is obvious. The Kiwi is a very endangered bird, we don’t want them to go extinct like the Moa…plus they’re totally worth it. Heck, you should see how much time we spend on Kakapos…google it if your interested.
teh birdee is indangereed
Hey this is our national bird, no such thing as to much effort healing our iconic bird. Jerk
Hey! That’s my university (Massey, in Palmerston North). Heh. Cool.
i can has video wifout sony music?
Squeeeeeeeeee !!!!
“This Video contains content from Sony Music Entertainment. It is no longer avaliable in your country.”
What I don’t see is this contains only an audio track from sony, right? Why do they disable the video too, then?
Or is this the new music video of Sony Entertainment’s new rising star, Piwi The Kiwi?
Whoaaaa damn youtube q_q
you can’t see this movie in your country… thank you sony entertainment!
This video like many others on this site doesn’t work for continental Europeans.
And Sony Music Entertainment proves again to be a kill-joy instead of entertaining.
I thought Kiwi’s were extinct?
Kiwis* … damn you grammar!
No, this bird *does not* have a ‘great chance’ of survival in the wild. Clearly, this bird is not a survivor. All these idiots are doing is ensuring a weak, inept bird survives long to pass its Stupid Genes on to another generation. Way to weaken the species, morons.
Yeah d, pretty much the same as your parents did with you, seems your family have been passing on stupid genes for a while along with the total lack of a compassion gene. Way to go, be sure to thank your mom and dad for polluting the gene pool with you won’t you.
The fact that he survived at all shows he’s a survivor, since a non-survivor would have died from shock from the first injury and never lived to have the second injury.
Birds die of shock very easily; sometimes just handling them is enough to kill them. So yeah, he’s a survivor
He will be released into a predator-free area. As there are no native land mammals in New Zealand (apart from a bat) there are few predators apart from cats and stoats. These are controlled in certain areas and eliminated on small surrounding islands where he will probably be released. As his leg has now healed there is no reason why he can’t survive in such an environment.
As one of the so called “idiots” who contributed to helping save this bird I’m proud of what we managed to achieve. His first injury was caused by human interference (as are most of the injuries we treat and fix in wildlife) not because he was unable to survive in the wild. Piwi will no doubt produce some awesome offspring who will go on to contribute to saving his species…go Piwi!!!
Say whatever you want, haters, but at least there’s people that care for those who don’t have much of a chance in the wild. It may be in captivity, but at least this little creature has the CHANCE to LIVE, no matter where it is.
{{{{Saki}}}} Teh hayterz heer ar teh pleh! Awll teh hayterz shud shuddup!
awwwwwwww dats sooooooooooooooo cute!
go kiwi, live on and never give up…
Sadly I have to agree, the fact that this bird seems to have a tendency for injury and is half the size he should be makes him not likely to survive in the wild for long. Which is sad, but is also the way Nature works… however, since he’s already had a serious Intervention, if they go ahead and place him in a zoo or something, that would greatly improve his odds, and give him a fairly cushy living where maybe he won’t hurt himself as often…
That’s probably what they’ll do…but of course, they have to get him on his feet, so to speak, before they do
.
Piwi is not as accident prone as the press made out. His first injury was actually human induced, we think by a transmitter, so not his fault at all. The second fracture was because he was still weak from the first fracture because he lost so much muscle mass. So both technically human induced injuries. He has a great chance of surviving in the wild which is the plan for him. Our goal is to try and fix the wildlife for release back in to the wild. He is very strong now after the treadmill exercise so is just building up fitness for the next few months before he is released into a predator controlled (alas, not free) area.
I haz a sad. Did Piwi luze her wings in teh aksident tu?
Very cute….unfortunetly when NZ was forming there were no natural predators so most of our native birds are flightless…
To everyone putting down the efforts of some great people, they do it because kiwis are extremely endangered and if we don’t do something now we will loose them forever. I’m sure if we came to your country (wherever that may be) and introduced predators to your native animals then you’d do what you could to help (which is exactly what has happend in NZ). Have some national pride people!
Exactly!
All teh eurocheezburgereaterz *can* haz videeoo widdout the sonee muzak heer;
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/cutestuff/3966661/Piwi-the-kiwi-steps-out
Teh keewee iz endain… endang… ingenderz … nots a lotz of dem left. Wurf saving even wun of dem fer breedingz.
We sez keewees iz cool. Haterz can go poke demselvez wif a sharp stick fing.
i keep my fingurz krost for da KEE WEE
Awww. Keep goin, Piwi! You can do it!
You go Piwi! <3
Wow, I always thought that Kiwis were smaller than that. And that one’s apparently smaller than normal? Damn. Well I hope it gets off the sick soon.
Unfortunately, kiwi tend to be clumsy animals. While they were evolving they had few natural predators and lots of food (bugs, nz has em).
Its also not uncommon for kiwi to be re-habilitated on a treadmill. Massey University does an amazing job! Kiwi can be ‘mal-positioned’ in their eggs, kind of like a breech birth and when this happens its hard for them to hatch properly and most end up kind of wonky and one sided, treadmill therapy is a fantastic way to get them back on their feet, both of them and looking less drunk.
Also if a breeding pair keeps having malpositioned chicks (like more than two seasons in a row) you’ll find many people will stop interveening and let the kiwi get on with whatever themselves. Because the population is small we need a strong gene pool and we do take that into account.
Thanks for the support!! Piwi is in fact the first kiwi to be rehabilitated using a treadmill, hence the amazing press the little guy is receiving. It worked so well however you can be certain we will be using this method again