News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Parts of Waitākere Ranges to Reopen After Rāhui

Parts of Waitākere Ranges to Reopen After Rāhui

The lush Waitākere Ranges that line the western ridge of Auckland are home to some of the country’s most precious native flora, including New Zealand’s hallowed native tree, the kauri (Agathis australis), The Guardian’s…

Feathered Icon Breeds in Wellington

Feathered Icon Breeds in Wellington

New Zealand’s national bird, the kiwi, has hatched eggs in the wild in the Wellington area for the first time in living memory, thanks to a multiyear conservation effort, Pete McKenzie reports for The…

New Zealand’s Bird Extinction Rate Study’s Gauge

New Zealand’s Bird Extinction Rate Study’s Gauge

About 12 per cent of birds have died out as result of human activity in past 120,000 years, say scientists, with New Zealand used as the baseline for bird species loss on the basis…

Discovering New Zealand’s Newest Dark Sky Reserve

Discovering New Zealand’s Newest Dark Sky Reserve

The stars have long held a special resonance within Māori culture. Now, the plight of a small seabird has triggered Kaikōura to seek dark sky status – and the results are awe-inspiring, finds The…

Endangered, flightless bird returns to NZ mainland

Endangered, flightless bird returns to NZ mainland

The iconic and famously cheeky Kākāpō, a flightless bird indigenous to New Zealand, is returning to the nation’s largest main island thanks to conservation efforts by conservation groups, indigenous tribes, and central government. Kākāpō are…

Collaboration Saves the Kākāpō from Extinction

Collaboration Saves the Kākāpō from Extinction

“Kākāpō once lived throughout Aotearoa. Found nowhere else in the world, they have become a national icon, with their muppet-like faces and frequent silliness,” Pete McKenzie writes for National Geographic. But the birds, sometimes…

Ecologist Elizabeth Bell Kills to Be Kind

Ecologist Elizabeth Bell Kills to Be Kind

Elizabeth “Biz” Bell is one of the primary architects of a series of ambitious conservation projects from the Caribbean to the Channel Islands. Honed in New Zealand and now exported to the world, they…

Pristine Places Models for New Zealand’s Future

Pristine Places Models for New Zealand’s Future

“ Peters was sailing with Heritage Expeditions as part of a line-up of conservationists on board to explain and interpret New Zealand’s singular ecosystem for guests,” Jamie Lafferty writes for the…

Islanders Adam and Cathra Kelliher Seek Visionary

Islanders Adam and Cathra Kelliher Seek Visionary

The owners of Taransay in Scotland’s Western Isles, New Zealand-born former war correspondent Adam Kelliher and his Scottish wife Cathra, are looking for a partner to carry forward a nature restoration project, while also…

Extinct Dolphin Had Tusks Fish Wise to Avoid

Extinct Dolphin Had Tusks Fish Wise to Avoid

The waters off New Zealand 25 million years ago were home to early baleen whales, megatooth sharks and human-size penguins. Now researchers are adding a bizarre dolphin to the mix that may have used…

Zoo Miami Gets Reprimanded for Kiwi Petting

Zoo Miami Gets Reprimanded for Kiwi Petting

A video of the national bird being handled by Zoo Miami visitors has caused an outcry in New Zealand, with even the prime minister weighing in, Natasha Frost reports for The New York Times. Shy and…

Why New Zealand Is Obsessed with Its Native Birds

Why New Zealand Is Obsessed with Its Native Birds

New Zealand has an internationally unusual focus and dedication to its winged creatures, Tess McClure writes in a story published by The Guardian. That love has shaped its national identity and conservation agenda and…

Our Fabled Shellfish That Nearly Vanished

Our Fabled Shellfish That Nearly Vanished

Mainly found on the North Island, the large clam treasured by Māori coastal communities that nearly became extinct due to exploitation. But now, the toheroa might be on the way back, Norman Miller writes…

Aves Appreciation Rubs off on Sydney Writer

Aves Appreciation Rubs off on Sydney Writer

It seems like “every single” New Zealander has some kind of “bird madness”, and Sydney writer Rebecca Shaw has now determined that she too is “infected”, “and loving it”. Shaw reports on her new-found…

Should New Zealand Cats Be Kept Indoors?

Should New Zealand Cats Be Kept Indoors?

New Zealand’s remarkable birdlife evolved on a land without apex predators. Introduced cats have decimated their numbers. New Zealanders may have to change the way they keep cats, Stephen Dowling reports for the BBC. New…

Water Carved Our Landscape Now it Risks Lives

Water Carved Our Landscape Now it Risks Lives

New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay is known for its fine wine, but many of the region’s vineyards are now under water, along with homes and roads in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, Hilary Whiteman reports…

US TV Presenter Visits Our Shrinking Glaciers

US TV Presenter Visits Our Shrinking Glaciers

New Zealand is full of stunning, natural beauty and home to nearly 3000 glaciers, which are huge tourist destinations. But the glaciers are quickly vanishing due to rising temperatures, ABC News reports. Good Morning…

Two Prehistoric Penguins Added to Our Aviary

Two Prehistoric Penguins Added to Our Aviary

New Zealand has been a haven for earthbound birds for aeons. The absence of terrestrial predators allowed flightless parrots, kiwis and moas to thrive. Now researchers are adding two prehistoric penguins to this grounded…

Life on Scott Base Shared via TikTok

Life on Scott Base Shared via TikTok

As part of the Guardian series ‘Life on the edge’, Scott Base redevelopment manager Matthew Jordan talks to Eva Corlett about what it’s like to live inside New Zealand’s Antarctica headquarters. “My work is supporting…

Antipodes’ Penguins Lay Eggs Doomed to Die

Antipodes’ Penguins Lay Eggs Doomed to Die

In 1998, a team of researchers made the three-and-a-half day trek to the isolated Antipodes Islands in the South Pacific to study one of its few residents: the enigmatic and endangered erect-crested penguin. “These…

NIWA Scientists Say Tonga Eruption Record Size

NIWA Scientists Say Tonga Eruption Record Size

A team of oceanographers, scientists and marine geologists headed by the New Zealand National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) investigating an underwater volcano that erupted on 15 January 2022 in the Tongan…

Researchers Marvel at Godwit’s Migratory Flight

Researchers Marvel at Godwit’s Migratory Flight

Tens of thousands of bar-tailed godwits are taking advantage of favourable winds in September and October for their annual migration from the mud flats and muskeg of southern Alaska, south across the vast expanse…

Endangered Kākāpō Gets Big Population Boost

Endangered Kākāpō Gets Big Population Boost

The population of New Zealand’s endangered flightless kākāpō has increased by 25 per cent in the past year, bringing it up to 252 birds, the highest number since the 1970s, the ABC News reports. “There…

Sea Lions Continue Mainland Investigations

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…

Bruce Glavovic Urges Climate Scientists to Strike

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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 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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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…