Sea Lions Continue Mainland Investigations
Sea lions are returning to New Zealand’s mainland after being hunted to near extinction in the 19th and early 20th century. Now, local people are learning to live with their new – very curious…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Bruce Glavovic Urges Climate Scientists to Strike
Sometimes, Massey University professor Dr Bruce Glavovic feels so proud to be an environmental scientist, studying coastal planning and teaching future researchers, that it moves him to tears. Other times, he wonders whether any…
Predator Free 2050 a Force for Nature
“Across the world conservation groups, researchers and volunteers are working to combat the key drivers of biodiversity loss identified by scientists,” Max Benato writes for The Guardian in a story that looks at “five…
On the Hunt for Lost South Island Kōkako
Birdwatchers around the world are being called on to turn detective and help in a search for some of the rarest birds on Earth, including New Zealand’s South Island kōkako, last seen in 2007. The…
Haast’s Eagle’s Hunting and Eating Habits Examined
For more than a century, scientists have wondered whether New Zealand’s huge carnivorous Haast’s eagle, that went extinct around 600 years ago, was more of a predatory eagle or a gut-raiding vulture. Now we…
Rare Sea Lions Are Back and Crashing Sports Games
After their populations were decimated by hunters, New Zealand’s sea lions are returning to the coasts – sometimes surprising locals by turning up in unexpected places, Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for The New York Times. They…
Victory for Bat in Bird of the Year Competition
The winner of New Zealand’s Bird of the Year 2021 contest has been announced and it’s the country’s only native land mammal – the pekapeka-tou-roa long-tailed bat. The UK’s Independent newspaper reports. The bat stole…
Long-Legged Penguin Fossils Add to Rich Record
The discovery of a complete fossilised ancient giant penguin skeleton in the upper Kawhia Harbour, Waikato is helping scientists fill in some gaps in natural history, Sofia Quaglia reports for The Guardian. Scientists have concluded…
Chunk of Ancient Supercontinent Found Under NZ
As the California heat blazed outside in the summer of 2018, Rose Turnbull sat in the cool confines of a windowless basement sorting through grains of fine sand. A geologist based at New Zealand’s…
Insect Tracking Drones Boost Rare Bug Conservation
A “swarm” of bug-tracking drones and tiny radars are being developed at the University of Canterbury to help conservation of rare insects in New Zealand, Phil Mercer reports for Voice of America. Researchers hope it…
Zealandia a Nature Reserve with a 500-Year Plan
“In the past 30 years, a wilderness has grown up in the heart of New Zealand’s capital – so successfully its neighbours now complain about the raucous racket of rare birds. But this is…
Kākāpō Claims 2020 Bird of the Year Victory
The esteemed kākāpō has soared past its competition to claim victory in New Zealand’s Bird of the Year contest, a tense race marked by attempted voter interference during a divisive month of campaigning, Jennifer Hassan…
New Zealand’s Glaciers Testament to Climate Change
New research has found extreme melting of New Zealand’s glaciers in 2018 was at least ten times more likely due to human-caused global heating, Graham Readfearn reports for The Guardian. Twice a year, glaciologist Lauren…
World’s Newest Dark Sky Park Announced in NZ
New Zealand is quickly becoming one of the top dark sky destinations on earth, Valerie Stimac reports for Forbes, with the country home to two International Dark Sky Association (IDA) certified Dark Sky Sanctuaries –…
Rare Parakeet Rebounds in New Zealand
Populations of New Zealand’s critically endangered orange-fronted parakeet, or Malherbe’s parakeet, are recovering thanks to conservation efforts concentrated on bringing them back from the brink, the editor of educational geography website World Atlas, Oishimaya Sen Nag,…
Kea Show Humanlike Ability to Make Predictions
Whether it’s calculating your risk of catching coronavirus or gauging the chance of rain on your upcoming beach vacation, you use a mix of statistical, physical, and social information to make a decision, Virginia…
Scientists Climb Tane Mahuta to Help Save Kauri
Two arborists, chest-deep in underbrush, secured a rope slung over a branch in the Waipoua Forest, close to the northern tip of New Zealand. Scott Forrest pumped his fist, Per Liljas writes for The…
Can Technology Save the Kākāpō?
Large, plump and nocturnal, the kākāpō is the only parrot in the world that lives on the ground and cannot fly. There are only 211 in existence, confined to four small islands off the…
Manawatāwhi’s Lonely Kaikōmako Gets Some Neighbours
After seven decades of cuttings, failures, plant enzymes, a little coaxing, and a Māori blessing, one of the world’s rarest trees – which lives on a tiny island 64km off the northern edge of…
New Zealand’s Bird of the Year is the Hoiho
The endangered hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin) won New Zealand’s coveted Bird of the Year competition after two weeks of intense campaigning, the BBC reports. The hoiho saw off many avian rivals to become the first…
Barbara Wheeler, The First New Zealander to Become a Longwood Gardens Fellow
Dunedin horticulturist Barbara Wheeler is the first New Zealander to receive a fellowship from Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, one of the premier horticultural gardens in the United States. The 13-month residency aims…
Tourists Banned from Swimming with Dolphins
Tourists have been banned from swimming with bottlenose dolphins in New Zealand in a bid to protect them from “being loved into extinction”. Chiaro Giordano reports for UK newspaper, The Independent. The population of bottlenose…
Are Weka Slacking Off in Seed Dispersal?
Humans can be a terrible influence on birds. Crows that live near us end up with high cholesterol, sparrows screech to be heard over oil pumps, and instead of migrating, some storks now just…
Vanishing Act of New Zealand’s Toheroa
People talk about toheroa like they’re a dream, because these days, they are, Naomi Arnold writes for travel site, Atlas Obscura. The big, delicious surf clams were once plentiful on New Zealand shorelines, before…
Human-Sized Penguin Lived in New Zealand
The BBC reports on the findings of the remains of a giant penguin the size of a human that were discovered in Waipara, North Canterbury by amateur palaeontologist Leigh Love in 2018. The fossilised leg…
Study Provides Alarming Biodiversity Figures
“When humans arrived in New Zealand some 700 years ago, they discovered a plethora of unusual birds that could be found nowhere else in the world, having evolved in isolation on the island ……
Fossils of Largest Ever Parrot Found in Otago
The fossils of an enormous parrot, estimated to have weighed about 7kg, have been found near Saint Bathans in Central Otago. The Guardian reports on the discovery. Palaeontologists have named the new species Heracles inexpectatus…
Perfectly Preserved Moa Prints Discovered
Michael Johnston was out taking his boss’s dog for a dip in a nearby river in Ranfurly, when he stumbled across some unusual markings in the waterbed. Jonathan Ore writes about the discovery for a…
Record-Breaking Breeding Season for the Kākāpō
The world’s fattest species of parrot, the kākāpō, has had a record-breaking breeding season in New Zealand, with scientists saying the fortunes of the critically-endangered bird are finally turning around. There are only 147 adult…
Why Some of Our Famous Flightless Birds Can’t Fly
University of Otago researchers in association with colleagues from Harvard University have discovered new evidence of what made some of New Zealand’s iconic birds such as the kiwi and extinct moa flightless. Dr Paul…
Saving the Strangest Parrot on Earth
It’s as plump as a goose, has the face of an owl and waddles like a duck. It sleeps in the day and is active at night. And it can climb just about anything…
New Zealand Continues Plans to Save Natives
New Zealand is three years into what many consider to be the world’s largest animal protection programme. The Predator Free 2050 government programme has a goal of removing all non-native pests by the year…
Whale Shark Expert Simon Pierce Hopes Tourism Helps
New Plymouth-born head of the Marine Megafauna Foundation and leading authority on whale sharks Simon Pierce has been overseeing a project on Nosy Be, an island off the northwestern coast of Madagascar, where there…
Kahurangi National Park Gets Bigger
Kahurangi National Park, situated in the north-west corner of the South Island, the second-largest national park in the country, has expanded by 14 per cent, roughly half the size of Auckland. More than 64,000ha of…
Extinct Penguins Wiped out by Hungry Humans
The discovery of two extinct penguin subspecies in New Zealand is a cautionary tale of the threats faced by the waddling birds in the wild. Veronique Greenwood reports for The New York Times. For thousands…
Origins of Extinct Adzebill Traced to Africa
Scientists at the University of Adelaide have revealed the African origins of New Zealand’s most mysterious giant flightless bird – the now extinct adzebill – showing that some of its closest living relatives are…
NZ’s Deteriorating Water Raises A Stink
“New Zealand’s clean, green image took a beating this summer as tourists travelling through the countryside posted pictures of lakes and rivers off limits due to contamination by farm effluent, rubbish and human faece.”…
Candyman’s Quiet Quest to Collect Banana Varieties
In Alega, American Samoa some delicious banana varieties are getting harder to find. A New Zealander, known only as Candyman, collects the fruit. Acquiring a new one can be as simple as trading with…
What Is the Sea Telling Us about Whale Strandings?
Whale whisperer Hori Parata was just seven years old when he attended his first mass stranding, a beaching of porpoises in Northland, their cries screeching through the air on the deserted stretch of sand. Seven…
Hopes Webcam Can save Endangered Albatross
Millions of amateur naturalists around the world have been tuning in to the secret lives of albatrosses as Department of Conversation (DOC) rangers on the Otago Peninsula employ YouTube in a bid to save…
Endangered Penguins Kitted Out in Onesies
Ahead of Penguin Awareness Day on 20 January, a story has been doing the rounds about The Wildlife Hospital in Dunedin. They are using baby onesies to aid in the recuperation of endangered yellow-eyed…
Where to Spot Wildlife in New Zealand
“Located at the bottom of the planet, New Zealand has a diverse range of landscapes in a country with a population that is tiny by world standards” and “it’s no surprise that New Zealand…
Why Are Whales Stranding in New Zealand?
While whale strandings are not uncommon, they usually involve just a single animal rather than a whole group. The recent flurry of mass strandings on New Zealand beaches has brought…
North and South Islands Moving Closer Together
The North and South Islands are moving closer together after a series of earthquakes in 2016 that lifted the sea floor, GNS Science has said. Over about a minute-and-a-half, parts of the Marlborough coast were…
Kiwi To Be Reintroduced to Wellington
Wellington could soon have kiwi nesting beside Parliament House thanks to an ambitious conservation project that aims to reintroduce New Zealand’s iconic national bird to the capital city within the next decade. There are 68,000…
New Zealand Bird of the Year
The Kererū – “a native green and bronze wood pigeon with a taste for fermented fruit has been named the 2019 bird of the year in New Zealand” in a poll organised by Forest…
Fiordland Penguins Make Mammoth Migrations
Every December, the Fiordland crested penguins, Eudyptes pachyrhynchus, which live on the South Island, disappear, Jason Daley reports for the Smithsonian journal. A new satellite study shows the penguins migrate up to 7000km to…
Time May Be Running Out for Tāne Mahuta
New Zealand’s oldest and most sacred tree, Tāne Mahuta (Lord of the Forest), stands 60m from death, as a fungal disease known as kauri dieback spreads unabated across the country. Despite stringent efforts by…
Sign Up to Help Protect Our Iconic Bird
Kiwis for kiwi is a national charity working with community and Māori-led conservation projects to put a stop to the horrific decline of our national icon. With the support of Old Mout Cider, they have…
Frolicking Right Whale Charms Wellingtonians
A huge southern right whale frolicking in Wellington harbour brought the capital’s waterfront to a standstill last week as locals skipped work to catch a glimpse of the animal. Southern right whales used to be…
NZ Most Perilous Place for Seabirds
“Seabirds are more at risk of dying due to plastic in New Zealand than anywhere else in the world, new research presented to parliament has shown.” Eleanor Ainge Roy reports for
Towards Making Auckland Island Predator-Free
At Forest and Bird’s 2018 Conference, New Zealand Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced funding for the first step in the country’s “most ambitious island pest eradication”. Sage has committed $2 million over the next three…
Roadside Gyms Keep Kea Busy
To try to keep New Zealand’s Mountain Parrots “out of harm’s way, conservationists have developed roadside kea gyms which is equipped with ladders, spinning flotation devices, swings and climbing frames,” as reported in an…
Saving New Zealand’s Prehistoric Giant Wētā
New Zealand is rich in wildlife and, because of its isolation, there are hundreds of plants and animals that evolved here that cannot be found anywhere else. The country’s giant wētā (wētā punga) managed…
Bird’s Eye View of New Zealand’s Changing Glaciers
Every March, glacier “watchers” take to the skies to photograph snow and ice clinging to high peaks along the length of New Zealand’s Southern Alps. Researchers Andrew Lorrey, Andrew Mackintosh and Brian Anderson write…
New Zealand Rallies to Save its Iconic Bird
There are 68,000 kiwi left in New Zealand, and they are declining at the rate of 2 per cent per year. A century ago, there were millions. Outside the predator-free zones, kiwi chicks and…
