Rotoroa Island, off the coast of New Zealand is tiny, at just 82 hectares (200 acres), but don’t let its diminutiveness fool you: big things are happening here. Over the past few years the island has become the site of a quiet, but grand, conservation experiment. What would happen if you populated an island with […]
Tag: new zealand
High as a Hihi: Rare New Zealand Birds Trip Out on Unknown Fungus
How does a hihi get high? It feasts on a forbidden, mind-altering fungus, that’s how. The hihi, in case you don’t know, is a small, quirky bird native to New Zealand that usually likes to dine on fruits, nectar and the occasional insect. But a group of the rare birds at a wildlife sanctuary in […]
A “Death Sentence” For the Tiniest Dolphins in the World
At just 1.2 to 1.4 meters long and about 110 pounds, Maui’s dolphin is the smallest in the world. It is also found only on the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island — and it is critically endangered. A 2012 survey commissioned by the New Zealand government’s Department of Conservation found that there were only […]
World’s largest rat extermination returns South Georgia to its bird life
A team on South Georgia has successfully completed the world’s largest rodent eradication in an effort to rid the British territory of millions of rats and mice. Against the backdrop of an approaching Antarctic winter between February and May, three helicopters encountered perilous flying conditions while peppering the southern Atlantic island with 183 tonnes of […]
Tasmania hopes foreign zoo breeding program will help save devils
About 20 Tasmanian devils will be sent to overseas zoos in an ambitious escalation of the battle against a deadly facial tumour disease that has ravaged the marsupials. The Tasmanian government has launched a pilot project that will see up to three zoos in New Zealand and two in the US take about 20 devils […]
Cat wars break out in New Zealand
Plan to prevent felines from killing much-prized native birds causes consternation. Call it the Kiwi cat wars. In the island nation said to harbour more cat owners per capita than any other country, a furore has broken out over a crusade to eradicate man’s second-best friend. The charge is being led by Gareth Morgan, a […]
Most Popular and Widely-Read Articles in Apr 2013
The purpose of this review is to highlight the most popular and widely-read articles during the previous month. During April our global team of wildlife photographers and authors published 182 articles in promoting the cause of wildlife conservation. First prize goes once again to Adam Riley with Komodo and its Dragons, an article published in […]
Saviours or villains: controversy erupts as New Zealand plans to drop poison over Critically Endangered frog habitat
New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) is facing a backlash over plans to aerially drop a controversial poison, known as 1080, over the habitat of two endangered, prehistoric, and truly bizarre frog species, Archey’s and Hochsetter’s frogs, on Mount Moehau. Used in New Zealand to kill populations of invasive mammals, such as rats and the […]