New Zealand is witnessing an extraordinary citizen-led effort to bring its sacred national bird, the kiwi , back to the capital’s hills after an absence of over a century.

Residents are spearheading an ambitious campaign to reintroduce the endangered, flightless birds to their ancestral lands.

Kiwi are “a part of who we are and our sense of belonging here”, Paul Ward, founder of the Capital Kiwi Project, a charitable trust, said.

“But they’ve been gone from these hills for well over a century and we decided as Wellingtonians that wasn’t right."

In a poignant scene late on Tuesday night, Ward and his team traversed rugged farmland, shrouded in mist above the dark sea separating New Zealand’s North and South Islands.…