KEY POINTS:
More than 3000 revellers at Auckland Zoo celebrated an early New Year last night with a roar.
The zoo opened its gates for a New Year Jungle Party, a chance for children and their parents to enjoy the last day of 2006 without struggling to make midnight.
Parents
were asked to put their watches forward three hours to see in the New Year at 9pm.
Zoo events manager Jackie Sanders said the idea was adopted from Australian zoos.
"If the kids had to stay up until midnight they'd be too tired and wouldn't be able to enjoy themselves."
She said some proceeds from last night would go to a Sumatran tiger breeding project.
Just 560 remain, including 160 in captivity.
In 2005, the zoo lost its own Sumatran tiger, 8-year-old Nisha, when she died from cancer.
But there are high hopes that the two who replaced her - Oz, who arrived from Israel in September, and Nisha's younger sister, Molek, who came up from Hamilton in October - will breed over the next 18 months.
Senior keeper Christine Tintinger said: "We've never had a viable pair before. It used to be more important just to have animals on show which unfortunately some zoos around the world still do.
"These days you have to make sure their environment is as close to their home as possible."
There will be more tiger fundraising events over summer with performances from Greg Johnson, Nathan Haines, Tim Finn, the Black Seeds and Anika Moa.
At least the weather in Auckland stayed fine last night, unlike other parts of the country where 2006 finished with temperatures close to record lows.
A day after heavy rains caused the evacuation of campers and house flooding in Canterbury, there was a dusting of snow on the Remarkables as New Zealand's cricketers played the touring Sri Lankans in Queenstown.
In Christchurch the mercury reached only 11C, while Wellingtonians shivered in rain and 12C.
It was so unpleasant in the capital that the now-traditional New Year's Eve party in Civic Square was called off.
National Radio reported that the decision was made after several hours of steady, sometimes heavy, rain and frigid temperatures produced by a cold, strong southerly.
MetService forecaster Rakesh Lal said that records back to 1972 showed both temperatures were a fraction over the all-time low maximums in December for the cities - Wellington's lowest maximum was 11.6C and Christchurch's was 10.4C.
The highest minimum in those 34 years was 17C.
