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…
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 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…
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, 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…
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…
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…
“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.”…
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…
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…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
“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
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
It has been a busy first six months for Dubai Safari under the stewardship of its technical director, New Zealander Timothy Husband, Nick Webster reports for The National. Too big for owners to manage…
A new population of at least 700 blue whales has been found living between the North and South Islands. The gigantic marine mammals are genetically distinct from whales found in the neighbouring Pacific and…
“A spectacular sinkhole the length of two football fields and the depth of a six-story building has opened up on a New Zealand farm” near the North Island town of Rotorua, writes Guy Birchall in…
Life can be tough when you’re a blue penguin. For starters, you are no taller than a house cat and weigh less than a kilogram. That means many other creatures – rats, ferrets and…
A fossil found in South Canterbury is now one of the earliest members of the filter-feeding family of behemoths known as baleen whales. Modern baleen whales include many of the world’s largest cetaceans, such…
“It’s likely you’ve never heard of a hihi, let alone seen one in the wild. Also known as stitchbirds, these colourful little critters are a true taonga. They’re only found in New Zealand, and…
“If you want to experience a starry night in New Zealand even when it’s cloudy, there’s an option. When foul weather hides the Southern Cross and the Magellanic Clouds of the southern skies, you…
A memorial was recently held for Thomas the goose, a “New Zealander who spent most of his life as a loving partner, caring father and an icon of the LGBT community”, Yvette Tan writes in a…
Sirocco, New Zealand’s superstar kakapo, is alive and well in Fiordland, according to the Department of Conservation. The conservation ‘spokesbird’ shot to fame after he got a bit too friendly…
Nigel, a handsome gannet who lived on a desolate island off the coast of New Zealand, died suddenly last week. Wherever his soul has landed, the singles scene surely cannot be worse, Karin Brulliard…
The fossils of a massive bat have been discovered near the historic mining town of St Bathans in Central Otago. The 16- to 19-million-year-old bat’s body mass was just 40g, but its teeth and…
“The Farm Cape Kidnappers, a luxury resort in the North Island, sits inside one of the largest wildlife sanctuaries in the country, the privately-owned Cape Sanctuary. There, efforts are underway to save the native…
Conservationists want to stop New Zealand’s kea – dubbed the world’s smartest parrot – from wandering onto roads and begging humans for food, so they have designed a special gym for the country’s playful…
Researchers have found that the world’s largest deep ocean volcanic eruption happened 1000km north east of New Zealand. Named as Havre, the deep ocean volcanic eruption was first discovered in 2002. A solidified volcanic rock…
Footage of a Fiordland crested penguin in Bluff waddling up to his awaiting human friend Rodney Clark has delighted the internet and amused many New Zealand locals. The video shows Bluff local Clark standing on the…
Remnants of a 1.77-metre-tall penguin who walked on earth 55m to 60m years ago have been found south of Christchurch on what is now Hampden Beach. Measurements of the partial skeleton show that the flightless…
Before they were brought to New Zealand in the 13th century, the only land mammals in the country were bats and local birds could roam free. Today much of New Zealand, “has been so…
Founded in New Zealand in March 2017 by British climate scientist Dr Dan Price, American PhD candidate Jeff Willis and French-New Zealander Adrien Taylor (pictured right), the Trump Forest movement has now gone global,…
Studies by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) show that winter has contracted equally at its beginning and end. Winter has gotten shorter by a month over the last 100 years,…
“It’s a well-known fact that New Zealand is at war with much of its wildlife. Of course, not all New Zealanders agree with this onslaught, the goal of which is to remove all non-native…
The kea, the world’s only alpine parrot, has been crowned New Zealand Bird of the Year, beating the kereru and the kakapo with thousands more votes cast for the species than there are surviving…
Jack Lanting, from Hamilton, was eight years old when he fell in love with Lily, a rescue elephant he met at the Elephant Nature Park in Northern Thailand while on a trip with his…
Auckland University entomologist and Harry Potter fan Tom Saunders has named a parasitoid wasp after “redeemed” character Lucius Malfoy in the hope of showing not all wasps are bad. Saunders named and described the wasp…
The mostly submerged South Pacific landmass Zealandia may have been closer to land level than once thought, providing pathways for animals and plants to cross continents from 80 million years ago, an expedition has…
“When I first see the kiwi chick, I briefly wonder if I’m actually looking at a real animal. It’s a grapefruit-sized sphere of fluff with an adorably short version of an adult’s long beak,”…
The flightless nocturnal kiwi may be evolving to lose its eyesight altogether, suggest researchers. The blindness was discovered during a study of 160 Okarito brown kiwis (Apteryx rowi) in the South Island’s Okarito forest….
Roughly the size of a city block and up to eight stories high, the Pink and White Terraces were one of the top tourist attractions in New Zealand during the 19th century, Atlas Obscura…
During the summer of 1955-56, the Northland township of Opononi attracted thousands of visitors from across the country. They came because they wanted to catch a glimpse of a visitor who’d appeared on the…
New Zealander Timothy Husband should have been enjoying retirement at his cattle farm near the Blue Mountains of Australia, but he couldn’t resist the lure of helping captive wild animals at Dubai’s new safari…
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