If asked to name New Zealand’s public enemy number one, the first thing that springs to my mind is our most reviled Australian immigrant – the possum. European immigrants to NZ tried to introduce these critters not once, but twice (in 1837 & 1858) to establish a fur industry – and then voila, their population exploded.  […]

As Vicki noted, the television has undergone it’s most major makeover since it changed its colours in the mid-50s: it’s been supersized. Yes, yes, across the world, these jumbo TVs dwarf cramped rooms, so much so, that viewers need to gently fold themselves into the room’s recesses, only to be relieved of their pins-and-needles by their […]

As we wage war on our possums, stoats, rats to save our precious feathered friends, lets think of our Aussie counterparts, who are battling the menace that is the cane toad (Bufo Marinus).   Plucked from Hawaii and transported to Australia, these toads were used in agricultural pest control to wipe out cane beetles in […]

Blowing into the Chatham islands on the kind of Antarctic wind that keeps its trees in a permanent supine position, I’m greeted on the airport’s gangway by a southerly blast that ushers me hurriedly onto a land where the plants, birds and insect life is like no where else in the world. Weta -eating spiders […]

The bones of our almighty moa-eating eagle – the now extinct Haast Eagle – have recently been found in Malborough giving archaeologists a fresh new set of questions to ponder. When the first Haast eagle bones were discovered in 1871 in Glenmark Swamp in Canterbury, the questions flowed, however since then three complete skeletons have […]