Scoop: Satellite-tracking the flight of the godwit
As the last bar-tailed godwits leave New Zealand estuaries on their northern migration to Alaska this week, Massey scientists will trace their journey via satellite-tagged individuals. more
Boost for threatened lizard species – New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz
A native lizard species threatened with extinction has been given a boost thanks to a successful breeding programme at Christchurch’s Willowbank Wildlife Reserve.
a quick video showing the possum damage to the tawa and beech trees
This video was originally shared on blip.tv by richie b with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
Tiny rare owl spotted in Peru’s northern jungle
— An extremely rare species of tiny owl has been seen in the wild for the first time, the American Bird Conservancy said Thursday. The long-whiskered owlet, one of the world’s smallest owls, was discovered in 1976.
Researchers have caught a few specimens in nets after dark but had not seen it in nature.
first New Zealand land mammal fossil
“This amazing find suggests that other mammals are waiting to be found there, and that New Zealand belonged to the birds only in more recent times,”
One of New Zealand’s rarest birds – the Stitchbird Notiomystis cincta – today returns to the Auckland mainland for the first time in 125 years.
30 of the rare birds, locally called ‘Hihi’, are to be released in the Waitakere Ranges after being brought over from the Tiritira Matangi Islands, itself a reintroduction site for Stitchbird.
Once widespread over the North Island and adjacent offshore islands of New Zealand, Stitchbird has suffered significantly from the joint threats of introduced predators and habitat destruction. The release will be the first time the birds have been on the Auckland mainland since they became locally extinct in the 1880s. more
