For a long time it was a good place to be an endangered skink—a vertical sheet of rock at the head of Milford Sound/Piopiotahi, too snowy and steep for mice to bother with. But as the climate warms, the mice are moving in. For the skinks, it’s now a race to evacuate.
Something is nibbling at the heart of our ecosystems. As possums, rats and stoats disappear thanks to Predator Free 2050 operations, mouse numbers are expected to climb. Are we prepared? And since mice eat our wētā, beetles, geckos and skinks—rather than our charismatic birds—do we care enough to do anything about it?
Two of our largest and most handsome lizards—the 30 cm long Otago and grand skinks from Central Otago—are staring at extinction unless present conservation efforts succeed.
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