Science and environment
The age of fossil fuels is ending, and the world is entering the era of solar power. What matters now is how…
Fifteen years after kakaruwai were brought to Dunedin’s Orokonui Ecosanctuary, a new study shows the tiny…
In the world of academic publishing, there has been no more enjoyable read this year than a recent paper out…
For several years, kōtare, our native kingfishers, have been turning up at West Auckland rehab centre BirdCare…
On December 10, 2024, a juvenile bottlenose dolphin was reported tangled in fishing line near Riverhead, in…
Science and environment
Something strange is happening inside the Sun. In the last 40 years, the pattern of tiny sound waves produced…
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The age of fossil fuels is ending, and the world is entering the era of solar power. What matters now is how fast we make the shift....
On December 10, 2024, a juvenile bottlenose dolphin was reported tangled in fishing line near Riverhead, in the upper reaches of the Waitematā Harbour. The dolphin couldn’t flex its tail properly, or dive, or chase fish. Its pod headed elsewhere. One larger dolphin stayed behind, and for the next month it stuck close, spending almost […]...
Flora Feltham wrote an early version of our cover story when she was living on Wellington’s predator-free reserve Mana Island with her husband, then a DOC ranger. The couple spent two years on the island, often alone, spanning Feltham’s first pregnancy and 10 months of their baby’s life. An incredible honour, she says, but it […]...
Howletts Hut lies in a sheltered hollow on Daphne Ridge, an offshoot of the main Ruāhine Range. An appealing hut with an orange roof and blue walls, it has fine views of Black Ridge as well as an expansive vista of the Hawke’s Bay hinterland. In summer, it’s a place of golden tussocks, khaki beech […]...
A century ago, in a human frenzy for oil, hundreds of thousands of blue whales died. Can our blues ever recover?...
Every other week I go for a long run through bush close to our house in the Auckland suburb of Birkenhead. Much of it is dominated by towering macrocarpas, but as I scramble up the trail that runs along the edge of Duck Creek, the thin understorey of ponga becomes more dense and diverse, the […]...
Getting up before dawn, weathering rough seas, working during weekends and holidays and being scratched and pecked are not activities that today’s teenagers normally relish. But a team of students from Glenfield College in Auckland’s North Shore City accepted such conditions when they volunteered to help transfer endangered stitchbirds from Little Barrier Island to Tiritiri […]...
This issue’s cover posed a challenge: to present cannabis in a way that was recognisable, but that didn’t immediately call to mind a number of associations. An image of a cannabis leaf has layers of meaning attached to it. We wanted to make it possible for readers to take a fresh look. We are, as […]...
Is it true that deer act like moa in our forests, filling the ecological niche that moa left empty? Nope, says a new study by Landcare Research–Manaaki Whenua palaeobiologists Janet Wilmshurst and Jamie Wood. They compared prehistoric moa poo with modern-day deer poo, both from Daley’s Flat in the Dart River valley. Using plant pollen […]...
Jono Ridler is swimming the length of the North Island unassisted… but he has a lot of help....
Bacterium or blue whale, every living thing leaves a trace. Now we have a tool that can find that trace, in soil, in water—even in the air—and it’s changing the way we do science....
Health geographer Jesse Whitehead has been mapping New Zealanders’ access to healthcare, whether it’s the distance they have to travel to a vaccination clinic, or whether it would be more equitable to ensure vaccines are available at schools or GP clinics (it turns out that schools offer better coverage). These maps show the distance people […]...
The more species a subtropical forest has, the better at storing carbon it is. A study of forests in China, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found forests that were more species-rich cycled carbon faster and stored more carbon in trees, roots, litter, deadwood and soil. For every additional tree species, the total […]...
This issue of New Zealand Geographic went to print almost 20 years to the day after a science-fiction film by a young screenwriter and director from Paraparaumu opened in cinemas in the United States. It envisaged a future where people are genetically engineered, creating an upper class of physically ‘superior’ humans and an underclass of […]...
Science and environment
“It won’t sort itself out,” warns energy expert Nathan Surendran....
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Science and environment
Decades ago, red admiral butterflies all but abandoned Auckland city. Now, united by two retirees...
Science and environment
The exquisitely rare native flower that refuses to disappear....
Science and environment
When life’s gone off the rails and the road home is hard, it helps to...
Science and environment
The hard, heavy work of not feeling scared in the bush—and why we persist....
Science and environment
The joy and community that comes from picking up a paddle—and putting your back into...
For several years, kōtare, our native kingfishers, have been turning up at West Auckland rehab centre BirdCare Aotearoa with a mysterious affliction: mouths laced with tiny, almost translucent worms. “It sort of looks like strings of saliva sticking between the roof and the bottom of the mouth,” says Catriona Robertson, a hospital manager at BirdCare. […]...
In the world of academic publishing, there has been no more enjoyable read this year than a recent paper out of Sweden titled ‘Geologists on the silver screen—the sequel’. Published by Geology Today, the analysis covers 141 films released between 1919 and 2023 and took a group of geologists more than 10 years to compile. It […]...
Something strange is happening inside the Sun. In the last 40 years, the pattern of tiny sound waves produced deep beneath the surface of our star has mysteriously changed, say scientists reporting in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. This solar activity fluctuates in intensity in reliable 11-year cycles, at times driving solar […]...
Fifteen years after kakaruwai were brought to Dunedin’s Orokonui Ecosanctuary, a new study shows the tiny robins are doing so well that they have booked up every bit of real estate and are now kicking juveniles into the surrounding bush. Researchers counted at least 23 of the friendly birds living up to 1.5 kilometres outside […]...
After being hunted to less than three per cent of their original population by commercial whalers, blue whales are once again being spotted around mainland New Zealand. Some 370 sightings have been logged in DOC’s marine mammal database in recent decades. Most of those are incidental sightings from tourism and commercial fishing boats, seismic survey […]...
Butterflies and moths are active in the middle of the day, and mostly through spring and summer. So that’s when Chrissie Ward, 77, goes for her transect walks. Once a week, right through every warm season since the spring of 2009, she has walked the same 4.5 kilometres around the outskirts of Nelson, following and […]...
For a year, the coastline north of Kaikōura was home to a unique albino kekeno pup affectionately called Golden Boy. Department of Conservation scientists first spotted the ginger fur seal in February 2025 when he was a few months old, during colony monitoring at Ōhau Point. With his honey-coloured coat, pink flippers and nose, and rheumy […]...
For decades, young women of New Zealand marked their late teens with ceremonies that looked a lot like weddings....
OE McLeod with RM Briggs, CE Conway and O Ishizuka Geoscience Society of New Zealand, $75...
Mark Adams and Sarah Farrar, Massey University Press, $80...
Whales sing more when there’s oodles of food around, researchers have discovered. A team based at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute analysed whalesong picked up on hydrophones in the nutrient-rich seas off California. The first tapes were from 2015, when a marine heatwave was decimating the food web. That year, humpback whales sang on […]...
These days, it’s rare to spot a southern elephant seal in New Zealand. These hefty mammals—the males can reach five metres and 3.7 tonnes—are now resident only on remote subantarctic islands. But 800 years ago, these giants called Aotearoa home. Arriving on New Zealand shores, Polynesian voyagers would have encountered coastlines crowded with fur seals, sea […]...
Orchids are everywhere. New Zealand has well over 100 species; worldwide there are tens of thousands. “The only places where you don’t see orchids are in the Earth’s deserts and Antarctica,” says Carlos Lehnebach, an orchid botanist at Te Papa. Also, we’re obsessed with them. “There are a lot of people who are nutty about […]...
What sorts of birds are you likely to see if you tackle Te Araroa? After walking, as they say, “every f***ing inch” of the famous trail’s 3200 kilometres, methodically counting birds all the way, conservationist Colin Miskelly can tell you that mostly, there will be sparrows. The chirpy imports topped his tally at 12,500, more […]...
The sable shearwaters of Lord Howe Island, between Australia and New Zealand in the Tasman Sea, are among the most plastic-contaminated seabirds in the world. Unsuspecting parents feed their chicks indigestible bits of plastic, mistaken for squid or fish. “It’s upsetting to see just how much plastic they’ve got, just as they’re starting life,” says Alix […]...