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 […]...
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 […]...
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 […]...
On the island sanctuary of Whenua Hou, kākāpō only breed when rimu trees mast. Rimu responds to different temperature cues than beech. “If year two is colder than year one, there’ll be a mast in year four,” says kākāpō scientist Andrew Digby. “We count the developing fruit in the autumn. If more than eight per […]...
