A dainty bird, a little-known skink and a tiny, ‘strange’ frog – meet three species worth fighting for.
You could be forgiven for thinking of Auckland Zoo as just a lush oasis tucked up against Western Springs. Glossy leaves line the paths, spider monkeys groom each other while keepers and vets provide world-class care for animals. But each year, Zoo staff also spend thousands of hours out in the wild surveying, studying and working to save threatened taonga. It’s highly skilled physical work that can see them scrambling in the foothills of Fiordland searching for skinks, transporting tiny zoo-reared manu through the sand and wind of Te Ārai beach, or spending long nights peering at the leaf litter of Whareorino Forest and Pureora Forest Park surveying one very cryptic amphibian!
Zoo team members in the field (Image: Auckland Zoo)
As a wildlife conservation science organisation, Auckland Zoo provides support for native species that now depend on humans for survival. For more than 30 years the Zoo has worked both in the zoo and in the field, with the Department of Conservation on recovery programmes for some of our country’s most threatened bird, lizard, amphibian and invertebrate species.
Alex Rogers, DOC’s director of regional operations for Auckland says the pairing is a natural one – “we share the same values and ambition for nature”. This relationship was updated last October with a new National Strategic Partnership to combine the Zoo’s expertise in breeding, rearing and specialist intensive management skills with DOC’s knowledge and management of wild conservation sites.
The main goals? To help native wildlife on the brink of extinction and connect people with nature. Rogers says that the Zoo’s blend of zoo and field expertise offers a unique resource and is increasingly essential in the battle to save Aotearoa New Zealand’s 4000+ threatened species. “And with nearly a million visitors every year, the Zoo’s ability to mobilise people to protect and restore nature is outstanding,”
So, what are some of the species they’re fighting for?
Archey’s frog
These frogs are known for being small, ancient and NOT blind. Even for frogs they’re strange – they have no external ear drums, don’t call or croak much, aren’t good jumpers and have no webbing between their toes. Their young emerge from eggs as almost fully formed tiny frogs and then climb onto their dad’s back to complete metamorphosis. “They pre-date dinosaurs,” says Richard Gibson, Auckland Zoo’s head of animal care and conservation, “and they’ve barely changed for maybe a couple hundred million years”.
A frog that allows us to glimpse the past (Images: Auckland Zoo)
Archey’s frogs, each with individually patterned skin, are tasty meals for rats, mice, pigs, stoats, hedgehogs, possums, cats and potentially bigger introduced frogs. Once Archey’s frogs were more widespread around the North Island, but now there are just two natural wild populations– in the Coromandel and Whareorino Conservation Area – and a translocated population in Pureora Forest Park. Archey’s frogs are seriously threatened, and “there is not a single Archey’s frog living in the wild anywhere safe,” says Gibson. While DOC runs extensive predator control in Whareorino Forest, it’s not foolproof.
“It wasn’t really planned” when Archey’s frogs arrived there about 20 years ago, says Gibson. Frogs that had been used for research, including into Chytrid fungus, a newly arrived infectious amphibian disease, needed a home and DOC asked the Zoo. They’re a “tricky” species to maintain, being only about 80% frog and 20% “kind of weird” according to Gibson. Knowledge about frog keeping and breeding was limited in New Zealand at that time and their husbandry had to be trialled and adjusted over time.
The Zoo’s work has hugely increased our understanding of these frogs: their biology, breeding habits, natural history, and veterinary care. “This is all part of understanding what makes an Archey’s frog tick,” says Gibson, “all sorts of things are being squirrelled away as useful learnings.” These learnings are used each year in Whareorino and the Pureora forests when a contingent of Zoo staff join DOC to survey the frog populations there.
Handle with care (Image: Auckland Zoo)
Tara iti | New Zealand fairy tern
Tara iti are dainty birds. Fully grown they weigh less than a deck of cards at just 70 grams. A dark cap, eyeliner and bright orange beaks grace their heads. Chicks look like scruffs of fluff in various windswept states and have black beaks and eyes. They blend perfectly into nests which are scraped into exposed, low-lying areas of shell-covered sand. “They’re very vulnerable to storm surges and predators,” says Julie Underwood, Auckland Zoo’s lead keeper Ectotherms and fieldwork coordinator.
Tara iti in adult and juvenile stages (Images: Darren Markin, Auckland Zoo)
Tara iti are the most endangered endemic breeding birds in Aotearoa. At last count, in March, there were less than 40 adult tara iti. This was good news – monitoring after the 2023-2024 breeding season only recorded 32 birds. This increase is thanks to DOC’s Tara Iti Recovery Programme. Auckland Zoo plays a key strategic role in the programme, which has seen a record-breaking 19 fledglings take to the skies this past season.
The last four Decembers, DOC rangers have made special deliveries to Auckland Zoo – tara iti eggs. The speckled eggs are collected from monitored wild nests where another is almost always laid. At the Zoo the eggs are incubated for about 22 days before they hatch. Specialist keepers hand-rear the chicks on tiny live kōkopu, salmon or trout.
Young tara iti (Images: Shelley Ogle, Auckland Zoo)
After two weeks the chicks are taken to a fenced area at north Auckland’s Te Arai beach where they may join wild fledglings. The fenced area has no roof. Wild, adult tara iti fly overhead. About a week later, the chicks “start following the wild birds and learning to feed alongside them,” says Underwood. Still, a daily whistle from keepers working alongside DOC rangers at the fenced area indicates a free feed for any hungry chicks.
Eventually, the tara iti fly out into the world. This year some Zoo-reared birds were fitted with satellite tags. They surprised the team with their adventurous flights, one going all the way to New Plymouth and back.
Awakōpaka
“I doubt there’re many people in the entire country who have any idea that this skink exists,” says Underwood, “but it’s a very cool skink”. Only about 20 awakōpaka have ever been spotted in the wild since they were discovered in 2014. The largest is 77mm long – likely shorter than your index finger. Their name, translating to “skink that lives in the footprints of mighty glaciers”, alludes to the few hectares of steep rocky alpine habitat near the Homer Saddle in Fiordland where they’ve been found.
Awakōpaka (Images: Auckland Zoo)
Awakōpaka are on the highest tier of endangerment: nationally critical. When a beech and tussock masting event (when plants produce heaps of seeds), expected to bolster mice populations, was predicted in 2023, Ngāi Tahu and DOC decided to translocate some awakōpaka to Auckland Zoo while they established a mice suppression programme.
“The idea is to have a research population at the Zoo,” says Underwood, “to learn more about the species and develop husbandry practices should we need a full-on breeding programme”. First came five males in November 2023, then two more last year, one of which was a pregnant female. In April she gave birth to four tiny offspring that weighed 0.32-0.42 grams – about a third of a paperclip each. Three are progressing well, but one has died.
Looking after and weighing awakōpaka (Images: Auckland Zoo)
When the skinks arrived, next to nothing was known about the species. “That’s a real fun kind of challenge for us,” says Underwood. Poo analysis on arrival already revealed new information on their diet – mainly beetles and spiders. The team had a wealth of experience from previous successful programmes with cobble and Kapitia skinks from the South Island’s West Coast. The Zoo was a safe refuge for both species when their habitats were unsafe. Populations were secured, maintained and significantly increased at the Zoo and then returned to the wild (cobble skinks) or a dedicated predator-free reserve (Kapitia skinks).
In a facility that mimics the fluctuating temperatures and humidity of awakōpaka habitat, the team are adapting what they learned from other skinks. “We will be trying to breed them, knowing that we have some females now,” says Underwood. The goal will always be to secure the species in the wild, but when and how that can happen depends on DOC being confident that mice won’t decimate them. “We’re waiting on long-term mouse monitoring results and to see what they ask of us,” says Underwood.
Some of the Zoo’s team and their DOC colleagues (Image: Auckland Zoo)
For Underwood, who has worked at the Zoo for 17 years, the partnership projects with DOC have been career highlights. “We’ve got the same goals, passions, and we dovetail our skills, abilities, resources and knowledge, and it creates really successful conservation programmes,” she says. “They teach us, we teach them.” Meanwhile, tara iti hatch, and awakōpaka and Archey’s frogs are kept safe.