Some people have dogs, some have cats, some even have birds, but Joanna McVeagh and Colin Shore keep a different kind of creature - lizards.
The couple are two of Wairarapa's few registered lizard keepers, with a backyard littered with enclosures housing Auckland green and yellow geckos, forest geckos, common geckosand skinks.
The couple began keeping lizards two years ago with an A permit from the Department of Conservation, which has now been upgraded to a B permit.
Ms McVeagh, who is a monitoring officer for DoC, said they plan to expand their brood of five species.
"With an A permit, you are restricted to the species you can keep, but now that we have the B permit, we can have more."
Mr Shore says the pair have had a long-standing interest in lizards and take great care to predator-proof their enclosures, especially to protect the lizards from their three cats.
"There are so many threatened habitats out there and domestic cats and rats are the biggest threats to our native lizards."
They also care for lizards that are brought to them by people whose cats have picked them up and injured them.
"We take care of them until we know they can eat properly and can look after themselves before we release them back into a safe area in the wild," Ms McVeagh said.
Registered lizard keepers cannot take lizards from the wild, so Ms McVeagh and Mr Shore are members of Wairarapa Forest and Bird and the New Zealand Herpetological Society, where they can network with other lizard keepers.
"That's DoC's way of stopping people from disturbing them in their natural habitats," Ms McVeagh said.
The couple are also involved in projects to protect and preserve lizard habitats in Wairarapa, the next one Project Rengarenga.
Wairarapa Forest and Bird is teaming up with Ngati Hinewaka to protect and enhance a site of native wild rengarenga on the Palliser Coast, one of only two sites in Wairarapa with wild lily rengarenga still present.
They are also spreading the word about lizards to schools, and have had a lot of interest.
Mr Shore said keeping lizards was an interesting hobby.
"Some people think they're boring, but we can watch them for hours. They have their own beats and they're very individual."
