The kea who found fame after they were caught on film moving road cones have been given their own gym.

A partnership between the Department of Conservation (DOC), Downers NZ, University of Canterbury and the Kea Conservation Trust has enabled a kea gym to be built near the Homer Tunnel in Fiordland National Park.

A kea gym offers the birds several objects they can play with or take apart to distract them from danger or causing damage.

SUPPLIED Kea were caught shifting road cones at the Homer Tunnel.

DOC partnerships ranger Sue Streatfield said the idea to establish a gym at Homer Tunnel in Fiordland came after rangers were looking for a way to get kea away from the road.

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On regular visits to Homer Tunnel, rangers would find kea wandering all over the road as traffic waited to go through the one-way tunnel to Milford Sound.

SUPPLIED The kea gym at Homer Tunnel being utilised by several birds.

Tourists would be trying to take photos of the birds in the middle of traffic, Streatfield said.

In Nelson, kea gyms had been established to help distract the birds from damaging forestry equipment and in Arthur's Pass, a gym had been installed to lure birds away from the busy road.

A gym had also been installed at the Manapouri power station at West Arm to stop the birds from damaging vehicles in the car park, Streatfield said.

Kea Conservation Trust chair Tamsin Orr-Walker says people feeding the birds is one of the biggest issues.

With help from Downers NZ and advice from the Kea Conservation Trust, a gym was installed at the Homer Tunnel in November, she said.

So far the gym had seen less use as the hot weather had caused the birds to shift to the beech forest at The Divide, Streatfield said.

Downers NZ was monitoring the gym with cameras so researchers at the University of Canterbury could analyse the behaviour and develop new ways of interacting with the birds, she said.

In November 2016, The NZ Transport Agency's Milford Alliance team, which manages the Te Anau-Milford Highway, were a little puzzled to find their road cones in odd places at Homer Tunnel.

After reviewing footage from their cameras at each end of the one-way tunnel, the road workers discovered kea were shifting the cones onto the road.

Kea Conservation Trust chair Tamsin Orr-Walker said people feeding the birds was one of the biggest issues. "Feeding them is putting them in really severe danger."

Human food was rich in energy and caused problems for the birds, Orr-Walker said.

Not only did it encourage bad behaviour but feeding the birds also made them prone to picking up other items like poison baits or inedible objects, she said.

Birds in the backcountry did not have the same problems as birds who lived in or near hugely populated tourism areas, Orr-Walker said.

Some items used in the past on kea gyms have been bells and hessian bags filled with flowers and herbs.

The items were changed often to keep the birds interested, Orr-Walker said.