Tuatara take first steps to comeback

By PHILIP ENGLISH

The first tuatara eggs have been laid on Tiritiri Matangi Island after 60 of the ancient reptiles were moved there two months ago.

The eggs were discovered in a burrow by workers beside a track on the popular wildlife sanctuary in the Hauraki Gulf.

Only two eggs were seen before they were covered up again, so it is not known how many were laid.

But it will be some time before the island's tuatara population increases.

The eggs were laid by one of two females which were gravid when the 40 females and 20 males were moved from the Mercury Islands off the Coromandel Peninsula in late October.

Tuatara normally lay eight to 12 eggs every three or four years, and incubation takes from 12 to 15 months.

It has been estimated that it would take more than 1000 years for the 60 animals on the island breeding consistently through their 80- to 100-year life spans to produce a population density as high as other similar islands, which have up to 1500 tuatara a hectare.

The island's Department of Conservation ranger, Ray Walter, said visitors were reporting frequent sightings of the tuatara sunning themselves on and near tracks.

Mr Walter said it was hoped that North Island tomtits or miromiro, a small forest bird with a large head and short tail, would be the next native species to be released on the island, next year.