A kiwi has been found in a Russian port more than 16,000 kilometres from home - with authorities saying they have no idea how it got there.



Russian media is reporting the flightless native New Zealand bird was found living in the port town of Sochi, in the Krasnodar Krai region on the Black sea.



The Russia Today website said that experts believed the Kiwi may have arrived on a cruise ship, but Sochi's port authorities denied that could happen.



They say all cruise ships are subject to very strict controls.

"This is such a strange story, I'm shocked," Queenstown's Kiwi Birdlife Park senior officer Paul Kavanagh told Radio New Zealand. "It baffles me because kiwi are nocturnal and very shy... I've never heard of a black market involving kiwi."

The birds could be aggressive, had a strong kick and had been known to kill possums, Mr Kavanagh said.

"If you don't know how to handle one, they can be very aggressive.

"I really hope they do liaise with the Department of Conservation (DOC) as kiwi have special dietary requirements and can be nervous and skittish birds.

"If anything were to happen to the kiwi it would be such a shame."

Zoologists fear that the bird, not being used to the local climate, may die, Russia Today said. They were now busy figuring out how to save it.



Another site, newspepper.su, said the city resident zoologist Elena Vladimirova told the news agency Interfax that the bird "lives in a decorative garden for three days".



It was not clear which type of Kiwi the bird was.



Sochi, Russia's largest resort city, has a humid subtropical climate with an average temperature of 16 degrees celcius in May.

-Stuff with NZPA