Parrot’s Love Affair
Sirocco the kakapo has caused a stir in cyber space after he was captured on camera mating with the head of a British zoologist. The footage, which has received more than half a million…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Our Feathered Friends
“New Zealand’s island ecology – from the kauri trees to the kiwi, the country’s emblematic bird – is unique,” writes The Independent on Sunday’s Ben Ross. “Twenty years ago, Douglas Adams – the man…
Ancient Mystery Solved
The now extinct giant Haast’s eagle ruled the skies over New Zealand 750 years ago attacking moa from mountain perches and capable of killing small children. Because of their large size – these eagles…
Rescuing the Bumblebee
The short-haired bumblebee, Bombus subterraneus, was introduced to New Zealand from England between 1885 and 1906 to help pollinate crops. The bumblebee died out in the UK in 2000 because of loss of habitat and intensive…
Tectonic Action
GNS Science geophysicist Dr Grant Caldwell and colleagues have reported that water deep beneath earthquake zones in New Zealand triggers tremors. Caldwell and his colleagues were able to determine how water is moving and…
Pekapeka Predecessors
New Zealand’s endangered lesser short-tailed bat descended from 20-million-year-old Australian relatives, new research has found. Scientists had long thought that the bat evolved its walking preference independently. Since the bat’s native habitat lacks predators…
Saving Fish Stocks
Research from an international team of scientists, including Pamela Mace of the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries who helped write the study, shows that a handful of major fisheries across the world have managed…
Shaking Us All a Little Closer
The recent Fiordland earthquake (strongest earthquake in 78 years) has left New Zealand and Australia a little closer – 12 inches to be exact. The magnitude 7.8 quake on July 15 struck the South…
Behind the Foliage
Dr Kevin Burns and a team of researchers from Victoria University of Wellington have discovered that New Zealand trees have evolved a camouflage defense mechanism to protect themselves from extinct giant birds. “Plants are…
True Colours
The oldest moa feathers yet discovered and their DNA are providing New Zealand and Australian scientists with clues to the plumage of the giant bird – perhaps not unlike a giant chicken and speckled…
Pests Busted
Orchard worker Don Sullivan and a team of 30 trappers have been awarded the Forest & Bird annual Pestbuster prize for their work in nabbing 530 pests over the last year in four forested…
Investing in Breath
Roger Dickie New Zealand Ltd is offering investors shares in Onslow Carbon Forest, an established Douglas-fir forest east of the township of Roxburgh for $25,000 allowing investors the potential to earn carbon credits, and…
Safe Haven for Seals
Kaikoura is the first place in New Zealand, and the second in the world, to be Green Globe benchmarked, an international benchmarking and certification program developed for the travel industry in 1992. Kaikoura was…
Icy Developments
Victoria University glaciologist Dr Andrew Mackintosh has released findings of a study which shows that southern hemisphere glaciers evolve quite differently to those in the north. “Don’t assume that warming will be uniform over…
Tree Gods Unite
A ceremony to form a “sister-tree relationship” between Waipoua Forest’s Tane Mahuta and an ancient Japanese cedar tree located on Yakushima Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was held this month at the base…
Ratting Out the Weasels
Stoats, which were first introduced to New Zealand in the 19th century to combat the spread of the rabbit, have decimated the kiwi population reducing little spotted kiwi and Rowi or Okarito brown kiwi…
All Fenced in and Loving It
The South Island Tieke is making a protected return home after a 100-year hiatus, as the newest resident of the Orokonui Ecosanctuary. Forty tiekes, also known as saddlebacks, were released into the predator free…
Critical Condition
Three birds have joined ranks of the critically endangered, after an assessment by a panel of experts analysing data on 428 native birds. The grey duck, the eastern rock hopper penguin, and the grey-headed…
Moa Meals Uncovered
University of Otago postgraduate Jamie Wood collects moa dung, or coprolites, which he finds on tip-offs from hunters who report findings of moa bones. Alan Cooper of the University of Adelaide, who specialises in…
Kakapo Comeback
The Kakapo, a flightless, nocturnal, critically threatened New Zealand parrot that was long thought extinct, has staged a tiny comeback. Scientists are hailing the arrival of 34 kakapo chicks this year, propelling the total…
Passing Through the Idyllic
For three weeks over the summer, private gardens throughout New Zealand opened their gates to a tour group of 28 Arkansas Master Gardeners beginning at Totara Waters, a 2 acre garden owned by Peter…
Coup for Longevity
A one-month old tuatara has been discovered at Wellington’s Karori Wildlife Sanctuary Zealandia, the first baby tuatara to be seen on the mainland in two centuries. “We are all absolutely thrilled with this discovery,”…
Booming Population
The kakapo – star of a recent BBC documentary presented by British actor and raconteur Stephen Fry – is one of the world’s most endangered birds the kakapo, but thanks to the Kakapo Recovery…
Redback Revival
Redback spider numbers are rising rapidly on the South Island as the New Zealand climate becomes warmer and drier. Scientists expect the trend to continue, and for the redback to spread as an increasingly…
High-Country Star-Gazing
Plans for a Starlight Reserve and UNESCO world heritage recognition in the skies above Tekapo continue with former cabinet minister Margaret Austin meeting a UNESCO committee in Paris this month to discuss the proposal….
Not So Drowned Continent
Fossils of an 18 million year old ancestor to the tuatara have been found outside of Saint Bathans, Otago, filling a huge void in the fossil record, and casting doubt on a widely held…
Henry’s Heyday
A 111-year-old tuatara named Henry has successfully sewn his seed after over fifteen years in solitary confinement. Henry, who lives at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, was assumed over the hill and kept…
Slippery Subjects
Maori eel catching methods are related in a new book about migratory animals by American artist and author James Prosek, who spent time in New Zealand studying the fish. Bird, Butterfly, Eel is designed…
Pre-Human New Zealand
Paleontology researchers from the University of Adelaide, University of Otago, and the NZDEC have begun to paint a picture of ancient life on the New Zealand islands by investigating the feces of the giant…
Killer Waves
A New Zealand man spent one recent Saturday surfing alongside three orcas near a beach on the Taranaki coast, enjoying the perfect waves. Craig Hunter, who has been surfing off the North Island for…
Bush’s Pacific Monument
Large areas in the Pacific near New Zealand territory have been designated as American national monuments by outgoing U.S. President George Bush. The areas include the Mariana Trench and northern Mariana Islands, a chain…
Around New Zealand in 30 Days
Sherman’s Travel offers up a primer on New Zealand’s “stunning landscapes … fantastic wine scene, unbelievable lodges, and happening cities,” charting a course through the premier attractions of Auckland, The Wine Trail and The…
Drilling For Knowledge
Victoria University’s Tim Naish is one of a hundred scientists from 40 different countries working on a map of climate change. The Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) is digging deep below the Ross Ice Shelf to determine…
Aiding an Avian Identity
Though the battle to save New Zealand’s famous national symbol the kiwi is “conceded unwinnable on some fronts”; the bird’s existence is mounting with the help of Zealandia, Wellington’s Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, which expects…
Via the Red Route
Since its opening in 1995, Karori Wildlife Sanctuary – recently renamed Zealandia – has assisted in halting the continued demise of many native bird species, releasing 15 endangered species back into the…
With Loppers at the Ready
Conservation Volunteers New Zealand is joined by British gap-year blogger Ruth Holliday who writes about her time spent with the group in the Telegraph, “doing what is best described as heavy gardening in the…
An Astral Heritage
23 November 2008 – Tekapo’s Graeme Murray – director of Earth & Sky at Mt John Observatory – is the driving force behind obtaining UNESCO World Heritage Starlight Reserve status for the pristine skies…
Antarcticans Unite
Nearly every New Zealander, according to American author of The Entire Earth and Sky: Views on Antarctica, Leslie Carol Roberts “has some link to Antarctica – either they had been there, or someone they…
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…
Green Invasion
Though New Zealand has 2,065 plant species which grow nowhere else on the planet, 22,000 non-native plants have also made the isles their home. Of those, 2,069 have become naturalized: they have spread out…
To Cascading Waters
Waiheke Island, home to 8000 people and 30 vineyards, is a “true microcosm of Aotearoa” writes Boston Globe reporter Stephanie Stephens, who is “struck by the endearingly lower-stress pace of New Zealand life” coming…
Islands Preserved
New Zealand tourism is as much reliant upon maintaining the highest environment standards and preserving the Maori concept of kaitiakitanga – guardianship of the land and the animals – as it is giving visitors…
Persistence in Love
On Maud Island, evolutionary biologists from the University of Toronto have been studying the mating habits of giant male Cook Strait weta. Not only do males travel more than twice as far as females…
Sea Urchin Reef Concert
Auckland University marine biologists Craig Radford and Andrew Jeffs have discovered that sea urchins are behind loud noises emanating from underwater around New Zealand reefs. The 20- to 30-decibel sound is caused by the…
Kiwi-Pukapuka Relocate
Little Spotted Kiwi, the second rarest kiwi species, have been reintroduced onto Fiordland’s Chalky Island for the first time in a century. Sponsors of the transfer, South Island tour operators Real Journeys, joined iwi…
Beauty in Cold
Winter in New Zealand is captured in seascape images by Independent photographer Hannah Bills, who travelled through Wellington and then south, taking shots in and around Christchurch, “the Oxford of the southern hemisphere.” “Intensely…
Between Continents
At low tide in June on the Firth of Thames in Auckland, American traveller Eric Wagner looks for the bar-tailed godwit amongst thousands of waterbirds flocking to feed on uncovered shellfish. Wagner describes the…
Touting the Youth
New Zealand ‘the youngest country’, is the new focus of Tourism New Zealand’s international branding. Tourism chiefs have called in London PR agency Henry’s House as they revive the country’s popularity post-Lord of the…
Breathing Clean Air
New Zealand is a haven for environmental refugees and in this BBC World Service programme, one of six in the Global Perspective documentary series, four immigrants discuss their new home. In Escape to New…
Investigating a Colossus
Te Papa’s colossal squid, the largest ever caught, has created a worldwide media furore making headlines from South Africa and Germany, to Iran and Uruguay. Very little is known about colossal squid; only…
NZ’s Hottest Beaches
New Zealand’s four most “sizzling” beaches feature in a Forbes Traveler’s ‘Sexy Beaches Downunder’ slide show. These are: Piha, Hot Water Beach, Onetangi Bay, and Abel Tasman National Park, which receives a “’10’ rating…
Hawaiian Hunt
New Zealand hunting specialist Prohunt has been hired by The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii to help stem the destruction of the island’s native forest by marauding wild pigs and goats. Prohunt is conducting research…
Antarctic Oddities
New Zealand scientists were part of a 50-day “voyage of discovery” through the Ross Sea recently, coming face-to-face with some truly odd creatures. The marine life encountered during the 2,000-mile voyage included, jellyfish with…
Kiwi Hatched in US
Washington DC’s Smithsonian National Zoo has successfully hatched a rare North Island Brown kiwi, their third since 1975. The Smithsonian is one of only four zoos outside New Zealand to successfully breed the…
Leap for Frogkind
Thirteen tiny, and extremely rare, Maud Island froglets have been spotted at Wellington’s Karori Wildlife Sanctuary hitching a ride on the back of a fully grown male. Researcher Kerri Lukis said the frogs have…
Godwits Fly
Every year, godwits fly from Alaska to New Zealand in an astonishing six days. A Seattle-based husband and wife team have been following the migratory patterns of the tiny bird and write about their…
