Some people at the Department of Conservation did not want us to tell you about the Mokohinau stag beetle featured in this issue of the magazine. This is why we’ve decided to do so. There have never been many stag beetles on the Mokohinau islands. A lone species has been having a rough time out […]...
Carlos Lehnebach has been looking for a ghost orchid for ten years. In July, he found one....
“Cats tamed humans about 4000 years ago, and since then they have cunningly used humans to provide food, comfort and safety, and to aid their dispersal across, and conquest of, most of the world,” write professors John Woinarski, Sarah Legge and Chris Dickman, who lead a major Australian study on the impact of cats on […]...
No portraits exist of one of the most important people in Pacific history. Tupaia was a man of many talents: high priest, artist, diplomat, politician, orator and celestial navigator. After fleeing conflict on his home island of Ra’iātea for Tahiti, he befriended botanist Joseph Banks, and joined the onward voyage of James Cook’s Endeavour. Arriving […]...
The Mokohinau stag beetle is one of the world’s most endangered species, occupying less than an acre of scrub on a rocky tower in the middle of the ocean. Its habitat is so precarious that Auckland Zoo and DOC are hoping to safeguard a population of beetles on the mainland as a form of insurance—that […]...
Some species just like it cooler. Others have withdrawn little by little to higher altitudes, making new homes where it’s too cold for their enemies to follow. But warmer seasons allow predators and diseases to gain ground and advance above the bushline—meaning that the alpine zone is no longer the refuge it once was....
No country has anything quite like New Zealand’s network of backcountry huts, but many of these shelters were at risk of being lost to dilapidation, old age and the ravages of the weather. Now, volunteers around the country are preserving remote huts—and the heritage they represent—for the next generation of trampers....
