NASA Earth Observatory/Michala GarrisonStewart Island/Rakiura is the third-largest island in New Zealand, diminutive in comparison to the country’s North Island and South Island. Yet it hosts a population of one of the largest of the kiwi: the Stewart Island tokoeka. This flightless bird, a subspecies of the Southern brown kiwi (Apteryx australis), numbers in the thousands on the island, dwarfing its human population of approximately 500. Waves wash onto the rocky shore of Stewart Island/Rakiura near Halfmoon Bay on July 3, 2010. Conservationists have since embarked on a project on the much larger Stewart Island/Rakiura to eliminate rats, possums, feral cats, and hedgehogs.