What's On at Zealandia

Wellington - 13 October 2021: The titipounamu/rifleman pair living on Te Ahumairangi Hill in Wellington have become proud parents. 

With their chicks, currently the size of a bumblebees, the pair of New Zealand’s tiniest birds are making history. 

When the pair were first spotted in August, 3km away from Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne, it was thought to be the first sighting of their species in that area in more than 100 years.  

There's so much to see and do at the ecosanctuary in the heart of Wellington. Whether you’ve been 100 times or never there’s always something new to do and see.  

Danielle is currently our Director of the Centre for People and Nature and our Deputy Chief Executive and will take up the lead role on 15 November.

New Zealand’s smallest bird has been sighted on Te Ahūmairangi Hill in Wellington City. 

New Zealand’s only fully parasitic plant has been successfully germinated at the Lions Ōtari Native Plant Conservation Laboratory in Wellington. The milestone germination was of rare seeds gifted from Ngāti Rereahu in the first translocation to involve all six Greater Wellington iwi.

Taranaki Whānui iwi has officially declared Opau Urupā in Makara, Wellington as plastic- free, the first urupā (Māori cemetery) nationally to do so. 

They’re encouraging the community to use sustainable, plastic-free ways to commemorate loved ones instead of using plastic flowers.

Spending time in nature helps people feel better, and becoming involved in a local trapping group can give your health an even bigger boost, new research from Zealandia’s Centre for People and Nature shows.

 

Wellington’s urban eco-sanctuary ZEALANDIA is a showcase for environmental best practice and recently has been Toitū carbonzero certified for the fifth consecutive year. 

With the upcoming lower lake restoration project at ZEALANDIA (the Sanctuary to Sea project), conservation staff thought it would be good to get a baseline on shag nesting so we could measure any effect that the programme might have.

“ If you go out in [ZEALANDIA] today, you`re sure of a big surprise “, because there are no juvenile tuatara in their former glass nursery. Six juvenile tuatara were judged to have grown big enough to cope in the wild. They were also judged to be healthy, so were moved into the wild to protect them from a fungal disease primarily affecting tuatara in captivity.