A place where wild meets weird - and nothing is quite what it seems. Presenter Peter Elliott unravels the ancient past of New Zealand revealing astonishing new facts about the origins of our iconic animals. Be prepared to be shocked.
Life in the ocean is a constant battle to eat but not get eaten, to find a mate, to pass on your genes to the next generation...to survive.
At the Dunedin Wildlife Hospital, Dr Lisa needs to urgently assess a pair of unwell kākāpō, and Lizzie must convince a traumatised shag that it can swim. Many other animals are reaching the end of their rescue journeys as the southern summer draws to a close. The yellow-eyed penguin chicks brought in after an oceanic famine are finally old enough to be released into the wild. So too the four kākā chicks that were hand-reared by the Wildlife Hospital. The rascally parrots make an epic journey to the dazzling wilderness of Abel Tasman National Park, where a bright future awaits.
At Dunedin’s new Wildlife Hospital, the team have been thrown a curve ball! Some yellow-eyed penguins have tested positive for avian malaria, and what’s more terrifying is they’re not alone. The team must jump into action to prevent an all-out epidemic. But the penguins aren’t their only patients. At two months old, the kākā chicks have become quite the handful, and need a new home quickly! In the quarantine wing, the population of kākāpō chicks is steadily increasing, but four new-borns have developed a potentially deadly disease. Lisa and her team will have some long nights ahead of them to save these precious babies.
It’s mid-summer in Dunedin, and the city’s wildlife rescuers are in a flap. Eight newly-hatched kākāpō chicks have landed at the Wildlife Hospital, requiring Dr Lisa’s expert care. Lizzie and Emily need to deal with a very angry Fiordland crested penguin (who they soon nickname ‘Purple Rage’). And nurse Gina can’t help but laugh at the antics of the naughty kākā foursome. Out on the Otago Peninsula, the search for a mother sea lion and her pup goes to the dogs, literally, while a penguin researcher lives out her worst nightmare, and Purple Rage goes to rehab at Penguin Place.
Its early summer in southern New Zealand, and the Dunedin Wildlife Hospital has been inundated with wave after wave of starving penguin chicks. Dr Lisa Argilla and her team pull out all stops to save the hungry youngsters. Add to this a clutch of endangered kākā parrot chicks that need ‘round-the-clock care, and a kiwi that’s refusing to eat; the results are bedlam. The hospital is being stretched to its limits. Meanwhile, out on the Otago coast, Pete investigates the arrival of a rare leopard seal, and Rosalie helps get an ex-hospital patient back into the wild.
The new Dunedin Wildlife Hospital provides a second chance for injured native animals. Every day, Dr Lisa Argilla and her small team of wildlife vets give their all to save our precious fauna – from kererū pigeons with internal injuries caused by flying into windows, to a yellow-eyed penguin chomped on by a shark. Not all the arrivals survive their trauma, but thanks to the dedication of Lisa’s team and a network of local wildlife carers, most are successfully rehabilitated and finally released back into the wild. In an era where every animal counts, these are the precious moments that wildlife rescuers live for.
South America’s Weirdest Animals is a 3-part series about South America’s wildest, weirdest and the most diverse animal life – from northern reaches of Colombia to the southern tip of Argentina and Chile.
South America’s Weirdest Animals is a 3-part series about South America’s wildest, weirdest and the most diverse animal life – from northern reaches of Colombia to the southern tip of Argentina and Chile.
South America’s Weirdest Animals is a 3-part series about South America’s wildest, weirdest and the most diverse animal life – from northern reaches of Colombia to the southern tip of Argentina and Chile.
Witness an amazing partnership between humans and pandas as together they raise two tiny twin cubs in an effort to increase the world’s wild panda population.
Extreme birder James Currie sets out to find the sky wolves of Arizona, the Harris Hawk – in the depths of the Sonoran desert.
A study by the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency of illegal, unreported and unregulated tuna fishing has found that the problem may not be as bad as was feared. It estimated that between 2017 and 2019, 192,000 tonnes of tuna worth more than US$300 million was caught each year in the Pacific Islands region by people not following fisheries rules—down from 300,000 tonnes in the 2016 estimate. “The assumption that unlicensed fishing is rampant has been proven false,” says Auckland-based fisheries consultant Francisco Blaha, who contributed to the report. Only five percent of the dodgy dealings involved unlicensed fishing boats. Most—89 per cent—involved licensed operators misreporting which fish they caught, or how many.
Blue sharks swim in all the world’s oceans, and a new study reveals surprising stories about their migrations and behaviour. For his doctoral research at the University of Auckland, Riley Elliott carefully attached satellite tags to 15 blue sharks—11 males and four females—in the waters off northeastern New Zealand between 2012 and 2015. With limited funding available for the expensive tags, Elliott turned to community groups and individuals, the sponsors following the animals’ movements online. In some cases, the tag stayed attached for at least a year. One shark travelled more than 14,000 kilometres from New Zealand to the Pacific Islands and Indonesia and back. Another dived to more than 1364 metres below the surface—a record at the time for blue sharks—and a third swam all the way to the equator. “We were all kind of cheering for him,” says Elliott. “The scientific theory is they don’t cross the equator.” One kilometre from the line, as though the shark had sensed it, he turned and swam south. “Unfortunately, he went through a real hotspot of tuna fishing, and we stopped hearing from him.” These long-distance travellers were all males. The tagged females remained in and around New Zealand waters all year round—a surprise, given fisheries data had suggested there were few mature females here. In a shark fairy tale, Elliott tagged a male and a female off Aotea/Great Barrier Island in 2014. The female had fresh mating scars (shark romance is not gentle), and there were young pups close by. In late summer, the male swam north to the tropics, while the female stayed around Northland. The following spring, they reunited—returning to the same spot near Aotea at the same time. Blue sharks are declining almost everywhere, as they’re caught more often than any other shark in longline fisheries. In 2019, surface longline fishers in New Zealand caught almost as many blue sharks as they did southern bluefin, the species they were actually targeting. About three-quarters of the sharks caught were killed and processed for their fins or meat.
Electric eels are living batteries that taser their prey with 860-volt jolts. Sharks use electricity like an extra sense to see fish and sneak up on them. Spiders fly using the atmosphere’s electric charge, and bumblebees and flowers communicate through their personal electric fields. How else does the natural world use electricity?
Where do young sea creatures spend their first weeks? What’s at the root of oceanic food chains? Kelp forests are to Aotearoa what coral reefs are to other marine ecosystems. Or they used to be.
The attack is already underway when the researchers find the blue whale. A huge chunk of flesh has been ripped from its nose, its dorsal fin has been bitten off, and teeth rake scratches scar its body. Still, the whale tries to flee from its attackers. About a dozen orcas continue their hunt, and after 20 minutes, the whale is bleeding profusely. The end is near. Three orcas line up to deliver the fatal blow, ramming into its flank and forcing the whale under. One orca noses her way into the behemoth’s mouth and begins to feed on its tongue. Over the next six hours, around 50 killer whales converge on the 20-metre-long carcass for a blubbery feast. This is the first authenticated record of orcas hunting, killing and devouring a blue whale, the largest animal ever to exist on Earth. The encounter was reported by researchers from Australia and the United States, alongside a further two instances of blue whale predation by the same group of orcas. Whale tongue appears to be an orca delicacy, with two of the three hunts featuring individuals targeting it. Different orca groups often specialise in different hunting tactics: the resident orca population in New Zealand is known for stalking stingrays, while some in Antarctica are seal specialists. Orcas off the Baja California coast may also hunt blue whales, with video footage posted to the internet showing attacks—but no kills.
Where do Tamatea/Dusky Sound’s dolphins go? Starting in 2009, researchers spent a decade trying to find out, setting out 178 times in small boats in all seasons to track and identify the sound’s resident bottlenose dolphins—around 120 of them. They found that the animals preferred to hang out in certain parts of the vast waterway, and that they particularly liked Te Puaitaha/Breaksea Sound (the long fiord at the north end of Dusky Sound) and the Bowen Channel (between Resolution and Long Islands). However, from 2016 to 2018, the dolphins began to leave Breaksea Sound. Fiordland may be one of the wildest places in New Zealand, but human presence is increasing. The researchers suspect that increased boat traffic, the depletion of blue cod by recreational fishers, or the spread of the invasive weed undaria in Breaksea Sound could have something to do with the change. As large predators, bottlenose dolphins are a critical part of the Fiordland marine ecosystem. Nearby Doubtful Sound/Patea and Milford Sound/Piopiotahi have special safeguards in place for dolphins, but not Dusky. The researchers suggest a number of options to protect them: extend the boundaries of existing marine reserves to include dolphin hotspots, restrict vessel traffic in those areas, and lower recreation catch limits within the entire sound. These ecosystem-based approaches would be more effective than another suggestion, the creation of a marine mammal sanctuary, says the University of Auckland’s Rochelle Constantine, who was not involved in the paper. “It’s better to look after the whole area so all the marine life is taken into consideration.”
A symphony is taking place beneath the waves, as many different animals call to each other, scare off predators, stun their prey, or munch on algae. What happens when humans drown them out?
In Palmerston North, it doesn’t take a big effort to go bush. There are plenty of pathways close to the city that offer a glimpse at the region’s impressive biodiversity.
Loading..
3
$1 trial for two weeks, thereafter $8.50 every two months, cancel any time
Already a subscriber? Sign in
Signed in as . Sign out
Ask your librarian to subscribe to this service next year. Alternatively, use a home network and buy a digital subscription—just $1/week...
Subscribe to our free newsletter for news and prizes
