The South Island kōkako is widely believed to have died out a half century ago, but some committed bird experts are convinced there are signs a few remain: disturbed moss, glimpses of grey wings and orange wattles, an occasional haunting call. Yet despite decades scouring southern forests, the kōkako has remained elusive—a single feather is the closest the searchers may have come to proving the bird still exists.
The record of the Earth’s past climate has been frozen in ice bound up in ice sheets and glaciers on land, and floating on the seas in great ice shelves. Cores extracted from this ice tell an alarming story, and dramatically alter climate projections.
As temperatures around the world slowly rise, glaciers steadily retreat. New Zealand has over 3000 glaciers in its mountains, among them two of the fastest moving, most accessible and spectacular in the world—the Fox and Franz Josef. While thousands of annual visitors are impressed by the glaciers’ immensity, fewer get close enough to examine the beauty of the ice that makes up these groaning behemoths.
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