The Geology Museum at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka—University of Otago smells of old wood and older rocks. The walls are lined with geological maps and paintings of extinct creatures—giant penguins, strange ...

Willows can stop a river flooding a farm. Or they can turn a river dark and mean. Trying to control them, we’re realising, has always been a fool’s game. But we can’t stop now. For centuries, the ...

Introduced over 150 years ago as the basis for a fur trade, the Australian brush-tail possum has instead become an ecological plague, chomping its way through millions of tonnes of forest foliage a ...

For all their showiness, tree ferns are extraordinary survivors. They hold their secrets close—but now, scientists are finding new ways to unfurl them. In an underground carpark at the University of ...

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, ...

What would the beach be without red-billed gulls? We may be about to find out. Two huge colonies have already gone under and the next biggest, in Kaikōura, is failing fast. In December 2023, ...

Gibson’s and Antipodean albatrosses are citizens of no one nation. They are ocean birds, living on the wind and waves, travelling massive distances, passing back and forth over the high seas and the ...

Between 6–10 metres of rain falls in Fiordland each year. An incredible amount. It’s part of what powers the forest-to-fiord carbon storage pump that makes Fiordland exceptionally good at locking away ...

Kina numbers have exploded as we’ve eaten too many of their predators – like big snapper and crayfish – that usually keep them in check. The urchins munch through kelp and seaweed, leaving bare rock ...

Hundreds of snapper are floating in the sea off Auckland, and are washing up dead or dying on beaches off the Hauraki Gulf. Fisheries New Zealand is warning the public not to eat the fish “for safety ...

When you take a photo, why do you take a photo? The winning photographs of the 2023 Photographer of the Year can answer that central question. From nearly 8000 entries, there are 33 deserving ...

It has been a soggy few weeks for the upper North Island, with late January’s Auckland downpour and now, Cyclone Gabrielle. States of emergency have been declared across Ikaroa-a-Māui, schools and non ...