Limbo | New Zealand Geographic
At Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora, Joe Harrison documents an era of change and uncertainty. The mist hangs low over Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora, a body of water that’s not really a lake, nor a lagoon, but floats somewhere between the two. Reeds and wading birds puncture the dense bottle-green of the water, rich, fragile ecosystems swirling in […]
Boo! | New Zealand Geographic
They were a menace, said the landlady. They were cracking the pavements and tangling the powerlines. The trees at Ohiro Lodge had to go. So on March 23, 1963, Joyce and Robert Beatty of 145 Ohiro Road, Brooklyn, Wellington, had the old macrocarpas at the front of their guest house cut down, leaving tall and quite tragic-looking stumps.
Kākāpō: Bird on the brink - New Zealand Geographic
In a land renowned for its unusual birds, the kākāpō—a giant flightless nocturnal parrot with a bizarre breeding system—has to be one of the strangest. Although it has been lingering perilously close to extinction for the past half century, there is renewed hope that this icon of conservation effort has a future after all. For […]
A tale of two shipwrecks - New Zealand Geographic
Life in the subantarctic is difficult enough for those who arrive prepared. In 1864, castaways from two storm-wrecked ships, the Grafton and the Invercauld, landed on opposite ends of Auckland Island. Survival became a daily challenge. Each group tackled it differently: one fell to violence and cannibalism, while the other became a close-knit brotherhood.
Inside the Land March - New Zealand Geographic
Te Rōpū o te Matakite: the seers, the ones with foresight. That’s the name of the group that revered leader Dame Whina Cooper led on a 1000-kilometre march from the Far North to Wellington in 1975, protesting against more than a century of colonial laws designed to alienate Māori from their land. On the estuarine […]
The lost tribe of Fiordland - New Zealand Geographic
Bare footprints, remote campfires, people who slip into the bush when approached: for more than a century, the wild terrain west of Te Anau has been home to an extraordinary rumour. Many locals are convinced that a “lost tribe” of Māori—perhaps stragglers from long-ago skirmishes—not only survived here, but thrived. Down in Fiordland, in Tamatea/Dusky […]
Not a fan | New Zealand Geographic
Our summers are getting hotter, but electric fans are not always the answer—even if they make you feel cooler. Electric fans work by blowing cooler air across our skin and enhancing the evaporation of our sweat. Cheap and convenient, they often sell out in heatwaves. But on really hot days, a fan can flip from saviour to sauna—more convection oven than a …
Here lies Endurance | New Zealand Geographic
Preserved beneath three kilometres of frigid saltwater and up to five metres of floating sea ice, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s legendary ship “looks like it sank yesterday”, says Nico Vincent, an expert in ultra-deep-sea salvage who helped produce this remarkable new mosaic image. Vincent was part of the Endurance22 team that discovered the wreck in …
What happened at Waitangi - New Zealand Geographic
More than 50,000 people gathered at Waitangi on February 6, 2024—one of the largest attendances on record. What brought them? Driving south on State Highway 1 in the middle of the night, the crescent moon above, I wonder what this year’s Waitangi Day will hold. My friend Mikky, who’s Danish-Māori-Australian like me, says she’s eager […]
Great whites see the light | New Zealand Geographic
Laura Ryan was studying the visual systems of fish when a spate of shark attacks at her favourite Perth surf spot got her thinking—why do these apex predators confuse tasteless humans with delicious seals? Great whites are by far the deadliest shark species to humans, though fatal attacks are extremely rare—there are only 59 recorded deaths in …