It is probably every botanist’s dream to discover a new species. In practice, reaching this goal generally means hours of hard work examining herbarium specimens or visiting an unexplored part of the globe. Even then, most new vascular plant discoveries are of small shrubs, herbs, and grasses, and genuine discoveries of large tree species such […]...
In January, 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its four-yearly update on what the climate has been doing and what is likely to happen next. It found that over the past hundred years the global average temperature has risen by 0.6°C This increase may not sound like much, but remember that at […]...
Hundreds of metres below the sea surface, in the chilly subantarctic waters around the Auckland Islands, a female sea lion follows a group of arrow squid into a large trawl net. Suddenly, she senses that she cannot return the way she came—the speed of the trawl is too great. Nor can she follow the squid […]...
Chatham petrels, which nest only on tiny Rangatari Island, are one of our rarest seabirds, numbering around 100 breeding pairs. Using a range of protective measures—and a lot of TLC—Department of Conservation staff are helping to improve the birds’ survival chances....
Every two years, the world’s elite freestyle kayakers gather at a chosen river and compete in a championship whitewater rodeo. In 1999, it was New Zealand’s turn to host the event—at the Fulljames Rapid on the Waikato River. For months prior to the championship, competitors practised at the site to get the feel of the […]...
Placid or storm-tossed, the surface of the sea is merely the portal into Earth’s largest domain, the ocean realm. For 15 years, Tauranga-based marine biologist and photographer Kim Westerskov has dived his home waters of the Bay of Plenty and found myriad subjects for his camera....
The road—an insignificant thread of grey, vulnerable to every slip and avalanche from the massive mountains embracing it—and, below ground, the railway line are the fragile capillaries which nourish human activity in this vast South Island wilderness area....
More than a century ago, New Zealand premier Sir Julius Vogel penned a prophetic novel about life in the year 2000. So unerring were some of his predictions that librarians today could be excused for re-classifying the book as a work of non-fiction....
Buildings and bodies would not, at first glance, appear to have much in common. But to an engineer there are parallels, if not outright similarities. The history of life is partly about the evolution of hard parts (skeletons) to give support and strength to soft-bodied organisms. A group of New Zealand seismic engineers has been […]...
To date, there are only two known populations of orange-fronted parakeet: in the Hawdon Valley, Arthur’s Pass National Park, and in the south branch of the Hurunui River, Lake Sumner Forest Park. It was the discovery of the Hurunui population in 1995 which provided the first opportunity to study orange-fronted parakeets in the wild alongside […]...
