Each gold-striped gecko sighted is caught and marked with a non-toxic silver pen as part of the monitoring programme. Photo / Supplied
A student has dedicated her master's project to a rare gecko found in Bushy Park Tarapuruhi.
The gecko had only been previously sighted in Taranaki.
"The aim of my thesis is to develop a long-term monitoring programme for the gold-striped gecko species in Bushy Park," Caitlyn Friedel said.
Friedel is currently doing her Masters in Conservation Biology with Massey University.
"Currently, they don't have any monitoring there, and we don't know how many there are or where they are.
"My job is to try to gain useful data on their population."
She said New Zealand geckos and skinks were cryptic in their environment.
"You'll only see them if you're searching for them because they're really good at hiding."
She said because of this, it was difficult to monitor them effectively.
"There are only a few species of lizards that have long-term monitoring programmes, like the Otago skink.
Friedel said she decided to dedicate her Master's thesis to the geckos when she first saw them.
"I was in Bushy Park with my supervisor Doug Armstrong and we were doing a hihi survey.
"We came across a pile of fencing material, and Doug said last time he was there he saw gold-striped geckos in the pile."
Friedel said when he lifted up the fencing material, there were two geckos.
"Doug managed to catch one, and when he showed me the gecko, I started crying."
"I fangirl over animals. And when I see a beautiful animal or see an animal do something amazing, I feel so honoured to be in their presence."
She said prior to that incident, she had never heard of the geckos.
Friedel said herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians) had only become popular in New Zealand in the last 60 years.
"Before that, the popular things in the environment to study were really just birds and plants.
"So, we're still discovering how many species there are in New Zealand, where they live and how they live."
She said the gold-striped gecko was first sighted in Taranaki in 1980, and first discovered in the Taranaki Region by Joan Robb.
There's also a population in Rotokare Reserve in Taranaki, but this was the first population known in Whanganui, she said.
Bushy Park Tarapuruhi educator Keith Beautrais was among the first to make an official sighting of the gecko species a couple of years ago.
"I took some kura students that were five or six years old to Rātānui. There, they discovered a gecko that had a piece of its tail missing, but it was regrowing it.
"A herpetologist said it would have fallen out of a tree and may have got stunned on its way down," Beautrais said.
"I picked it up - which is not recommended - and showed the kids before letting it go.
He said the gold-striped geckos had been spotted earlier, but they had been up in trees and so it wasn't definite it was them.
"Younger people often make discoveries. They've got sharp little eyes and their heads are closer to the ground.
"When you've got a whole bunch of them, they're likely to spot all sorts of things."
Friedel said she used tracking tubes to monitor the lizards, which were 500mm plastic pipes with Black Trakka cards and tinned pear inserted into them.
Trakka cards had ink on part of the card which would print their footprints onto blank parts of the card, she said.
"It means I can see where they are in the park.
"You can't use Trakka cards for all species of geckos, but gold-striped geckos have a unique footprint, so we know it's them.
"Once I figured out where they were, I started putting the tubes in Bushy Park where I thought they would be."
Friedel said places included harakeke bushes, agapanthus plants and fallen trees.
She said she would catch, measure and give each a unique marking with a non-toxic silver pen.
"It meant if I resighted them, I could record that I have already seen this gecko.
"If we do this monitoring method each year, it will be a good indication of whether the population is growing," she said.
"We could build more areas they like to live in and see if they move into these areas."
Friedel said eventually, Bushy Park could potentially put creating more lizard and gecko habitats into the Bushy Park goals and help people think about lizards more.
"All endemic species of geckos and lizards are either at risk of extinction or are threatened and protected under the New Zealand Wildlife Act.
"None of them are doing particularly well, and we still have a way to go before we can let off our human intervention."
She said lizards absorbed everything through their skin, making them sensitive to pesticides and acidic soil.
"So, with climate change, we're worried lizards will struggle to thermoregulate, because as the climate gets hotter, the lizards will find it harder to keep cool.
"We've really got to encourage the public to learn more about lizards and what they can do in their backyards."
Friedel said things like wood piles were good environments for native skinks and lizards.
"We do have one invasive species of skink called the plague skink, or rainbow skink.
It came from Australia; we believe from a cargo ship.
"They look very much like the New Zealand native skink, so it would be great for people to figure out the difference between a plague skink and a native skink."
Friedel is currently partway through her data analysis and writing for her thesis, aiming to complete it by February 2023.