Better Late Than Never

30 October 2008 – For the first time in approximately two hundred years, a tuatara has been discovered nesting on the New Zealand  mainland. The event happened at Wellington’s Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, where four leathery, white eggs were discovered by staff during routine maintenance work. “The nest was uncovered by accident and is the first concrete proof we have that our tuatara are breeding,” conservation manager Rouen Epson said. “It suggests that there may be other nests in the sanctuary we don’t know of.” Epson said if all goes well, juvenile tuatara could hatch any time between now and March. A population of 70 tuatara was established at the Karori Sanctuary in 2005. Another 130 were released in 2007.