What's On at Zealandia

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.

The Great Kererū Count is starting soon! From 22 September to 1 October, thousands of New Zealanders will be taking part in this citizen science project by recording their sightings of kererū.

You will have heard our exciting news about the two takahē that will be making their way to ZEALANDIA on 28 August 2017!

Nio and Orbell are a breeding pair of takahē, 14 and 17 years old respectively. There is every possibility they could nest at ZEALANDIA this summer, which is incredible news for Wellington and ZEALANDIA’s ongoing success in conservation.

After being pretty much lost from the area in the early 1900’s, kākā are well and truly back in Wellington. Hundreds of them have been banded since they were introduced at ZEALANDIA in 2002. However, as these raucous parrots adapt to an urban environment, we need to be mindful of a few issues, including feeding kākā.

It’s with sadness that we announce that Puffin, one of our ambassador takahē, has passed away. Puffin was 21 years old, well over the lifespan of a wild takahē, and had delighted over half a million visitors during her time at ZEALANDIA.

“ 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.

Upon learning that the titipounamu / rifleman population in the Wainuiomata source site (the Wainuiomata / Orongorongo Key Native Ecosystem area) considerably lower than previously thought and, as a consequence, we made the difficult decision to postpone the translocation into ZEALANDIA scheduled for March. 

Sheila Playford has been described as a ‘Giant Weta Woman’. Since 2011, she has carried out a weekly survey of ZEALANDIA’s Giant Weta population and her dedication recently won her a ZEALANDIA ‘kākā’ award for outstanding volunteer contributions.

Last week, it was announced that the planned translocation of 80 tītipounamu / rifleman into the sanctuary in March 2017, followed by another 80 into Otari-Wilton's Bush in 2018 had been postponed due to ZEALANDIA having just learned that population in the Wainuiomata source site (the Wainuiomata / Orongorongo Key Native Ecosystem area) are considerably lower than previously thought.

We asked Dr. Danielle Shanahan, ZEALANDIA’s Conservation Manager, for some background on the postponement and about the next steps in bringing these iconic species into the sanctuary.

Last week, veterinarian Rebecca Webster sampled 40 tuatara in ZEALANDIA as part of her research into a potentially deadly fungal disease.