Flora & Fauna

A large population of the endangered katipō has been found on Marfells Beach, Marlborough.

Interestingly they’ve been finding them in the native vegetation but not in marram grass. Another reason to restore dunes to their native state.

Read the full story

black circles = dunes with burrows, white circles = withoutOur 2016 scholarship recipient Johannes Fischer has published another paper in relation to his diving petrel research. This time he compared the occurrence of skinks in dunes with and without diving petrel burrows.

Two skinks were surveyed: the Stewart Island green skink (Oligosoma aff. chloronoton) and the southern grass skink (O. aff. polychroma). Both skinks are more common in the dunes with burrows. However the difference was more pronounced with the Stewart Island green skink. If one of them was present, the other one was less likely to be there too. The larger size of the Stewart Island green skink could explain the different results. It likely outcompetes the southern grass skink.

Read the full paper.

DOC wants your opinion on Whitebait Management - closes 7 January 2019

This process isn’t a consultation and no decisions will be taken from it at this stage, but what you say and the information gathered is important to shape what happens next. Their survey here will take 2 -5 minutes to complete, depending on how much additional information you wish to provide.

NZ dotterels seen and photographed on Friday by Waikanae Estuary

Care Group Secretary, Pam Stapleton. Female on left, male on right

Johannes Fischer, our 2016 scholarship recipient, discovered that the South Georgian Diving Petrels he studied for nesting behaviour (see paper), were not quite the same as the South Georgian Diving Petrels in other parts of the world.

A subsequent study found that there were enough differences between the birds to declare the Codfish Island ones a separate species. The new species was named Pelecanoides whenuahouensis sp. nov. Read the full paper.