New Zealand's little dinosaurs to be released on Little Barrier Island
21 Dec 2006
Little Barrier Island, one of New Zealand’s premier nature reserves located in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf, will become home to 60 free roaming tuatara for the first time in over a decade.
For the last 10 years, the island’s tuatara have lived in captivity to protect them from kiore (Pacific rat) and other predators. A successful rat eradication programme by the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) has enabled their return to the wild.
Little Barrier’s predator eradication program has seen the island revert to the habitat it was before the arrival of humans, dense with native species such as the tuatara, birds, lizards and insects.
‘Several of the species living on the island have already started to show signs of recovery since kiore were eradicated, and I eagerly await seeing tuatara flourish as well,’ says Conservation Minister Chris Carter.
A New Zealand native, the tuatara are rare, medium-sized reptiles. They are also the oldest living genus of reptile in the world, dating back 190 million years to dinosaur times.
In the early 1990s, DOC began a captive management programme for tuatara on the island. Eight founder tuatara were taken into captivity and have since bred over 100 tuatara.
Offshore islands such as Little Barrier Island that are predator and pest-free are treated as havens or sanctuaries for New Zealand's vulnerable native species. The Department of Conservation looks after about 220 offshore islands, including New Zealand's subantarctic islands, and numerous small islets and rock stacks.
Further Information:
Department of Conservation Auckland Area Office
Ground Floor Ferry Buildings
Quay Street, Auckland
Phone +64 9 379 6476
Email aucklandvc@doc.govt.n
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