Tuatara at home on island

By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

After an absence of 60 years tuatara are thriving on Moutohora (Whale Island) in the Bay of Plenty.

Thirty-two of the rare reptiles were released on the wildlife refuge, 10km northwest of Whakatane, in October 1996.

The first survey since then - which finished on Tuesday - has found New Zealand's "living fossil" flourishing and breeding there.

Department of Conservation officers are excited that the tuatara are doing so well on the island.

Two juveniles about three years old and one hatchling about three months old were found, along with a dozen adults.

Said ranger Nancy Willems: "The significance of this find is that the tuatara mated as soon as they were released onto Moutohora, and laid eggs in November 1997. It means they have bred twice in five years, and they don't breed faster than that."

The presence of the hatchling indicated the population was continuing to reproduce, she said.

The adults found were in excellent condition, thanks to the abundant food supply and predator-free habitat, said Dr Graham Ussher, lecturer in restoration ecology at Auckland University's School of Environmental Sciences.

"The future is looking very bright for tuatara on Moutohora."

Dr Ussher was a student, doing a study on the restoration of threatened species on islands for his PhD, when he helped release the ancient reptile on the Bay of Plenty reserve.

He hopes to return soon to look for more of the spiny backed animals, which live to between 60 and 100 years.

Moving them to Moutohora had helped develop knowledge and technology which could be used to better understand how to restore tuatara to other offshore islands and to mainland New Zealand, said Dr Ussher.

When 20 female and 12 male tuatara were taken to Moutohora in 1996 from the Rurimu Rocks about 8km away, it was the first such transfer and part of a national tuatara recovery plan.

Once plentiful on the island, the native lizard-like creatures had disappeared by the 1930s because of farming and predators.

Planting and pest eradication programmes by the Conservation Department saw Moutohora restored and rodent-free.

Last month, a survey on the Marotiri Islands near Whangarei showed 43 per cent of the tuatara there were juveniles, compared with 2 per cent in previous counts. The success has been attributed to eradication of rats in 1999.

New Zealand's wild tuatara population is estimated at about 100,000, confined to 30 offshore islands.

nzherald.co.nz/environment