If it weren't for humans, black stilts would be prevalent throughout New Zealand - or extinct.

Contradictory, but true. You see, a few hundred years ago the little black-bodied, red-legged native wading birds were found in braided riverbeds and wetlands from Rotorua in the central North Island, to Otago in the South. Their only natural predators were harrier hawks and black-backed gulls - both of which the stilt had learned to frequently fend off.

Enter European settlers and their companions: weasels, ferrets, stoats, hedgehogs and wild cats. Suddenly, the tiny birds are unexpectedly overrun with vicious predators hunting their blood, their bones, their chicks and their eggs.

Turn the clock forward and humans are at it again - this time introducing their inventions: earth movers and hydro electric schemes to channelize the braided rivers in which the black stilts live; motor cars and dirt bikes that course across delicate breeding grounds, crushing eggs, killing chicks and scaring adult birds from their nests.

And as if all of this wasn't enough to wipe out a species, black stilts aren't exactly famous for their self-regeneration efforts.

"The black stilts are known as the first bird to make a noise and the last bird to fly away," says our Black Stilt Visitor Hide guide Brian, as we tour the purpose-built visitor facility on a brisk spring morning.

"One of the girls went out to feed the birds we've recently released and there was this stoat walking across the shingle towards the bird and he was just standing there! She clapped her hands, the stoat took off and the bird just stood still and flapped its wings as if to say 'oh hello'. Had she not been there it would've been another dead one."

Another dead one is something that this species - the world's rarest wading bird - cannot afford. Currently, the grand total of black stilt birds stands at 150. Out of that number there are just 17 breeding pairs. The figures sound dishearteningly small, but just 26 years ago things were decidedly worse.

In 1981, the Department of Conservation began a captive breeding programme for the black stilt - or kakī in Maori - after it was revealed there were only 23 living birds left.

That number has risen to today's total via a successful operation near the town of Twizel in the Mackenzie Basin - the area where most black stilts now reside. The Kaki Recovery Programme sees a number of breeding kaki pairs held at the on-site aviaries. The birds' eggs are incubated and the chicks raised in captivity before being released into the wild, up to nine months old.

Even then, survival is not guaranteed. "In August last year we released 38 chicks above Lake Tekapo," explains Brian. "Out of those, there are only 22 left. They were all killed by predators - stoats or harrier hawks - the worst of the lot."

Other dangers to wild kaki include introduced plants like gorse, lupin and cracked willow, which stabilise braided river environments and form deep, fast-flowing channels - creating unsuitable feeding grounds for wading birds. Flooding rivers, which drown unsuspecting birds and wipe out nesting areas, are another danger and even black stilts themselves pose a threat: "They're not very good family creatures, the black stilts," says Brian. "Once the chicks are ready to leave the nest, if they don't leave, the adults will actually drown them. They'll stomp on them.

"But that's what happens in the wild, so we can't interfere if it happens here at the aviaries."

Clearly, despite its long-legged, smooth-bodied elegance, the tiny Black Stilt can be a remarkably feisty bird. Fiercely territorial, the numerous pairs of breeding Kaki must be kept distinctly separated in the captive aviaries so they don't fight with one another.

On the day we visited the Black Stilt Visitor Hide there was only one bird in the main viewing aviary instead of the usual two - the other having broken its beak fending off harrier hawks. "The hawks have been giving us a bit of trouble lately," said Brian. "If a hawk comes anywhere near these birds, they will fly up to scare it off - even if it's sitting on eggs. That's the only instinct they've got.

"In some ways, these birds are quite brainy. In other ways, they're absolutely hopeless!"

As if to prove Brian's point, the lone adult in the visitors' viewing aviary begins a series of high-pitched chirping barks when it sees us - a potential predator - approaching. Instead of hiding or greeting us with suspicion it flaps its wings and prances noisily up and down its makeshift habitat which simulates the braided river conditions in which the bird would reside were its species not in peril. As well as the gourmet diet of minced ox heart and cat biscuits, this stilt receives a nightly dose of moths and bugs, sucked into its aviary via an innovative, night-sensor vacuum.

As he struts back and forth, I can't help but feel overwhelming compassion for this little bird and his species. Although they can be frustratingly stupid when it comes to their survival, the black stilts' naivety, vulnerability and endless struggle for survival is undeniably endearing.

"I'm one of the worst people to work here," admits Brian. "I feel that we're interfering with nature. But at the same time, I know that if humans hadn't intervened in 1981 when they first started to realise, these little birds wouldn't be here now."

The Department of Conservation Kaki / Black Stilt Visitor Hide is located just south of Twizel on SH8. Informative guided tours of the facility are run daily between October and April at 9.30am and 4.30pm. Bookings and your own transport are essential. Bookings can be made at either the Twizel Information Centre or at the Lake Pukaki Visitor Centre on SH8.

Amelia visited the Kaki / Black Stilt Visitor Hide courtesy of Mt Cook Mackenzie District Tourism.

Amelia is Content Editor for the New Zealand travel and tourism website www.fourcorners.co.nz.