Some feel-good nature wins to start your year.

Sure, 2024 wasn’t what you’d call a “feel-good” year for the natural world. But if your heart sank at each new blow to conservation (hello fast track bill, goodbye Jobs for Nature funding, looking at you, conservation and science budget cuts), let these despite-the-odds success stories lift your spirits. 

From kiwi spotted on CCTV in Wellington backyards to record-breaking bat roosts in the Bay of Plenty, these wins, while small, remind us that when we act, nature responds. 

Big comebacks

Greenstone Valley takahē thriving: it’s (nearly) 30, flirty and thriving at the newest takahē translocation site in Otago. One year on, the 28 takahē have settled into their new home, successfully hatching chicks and proving the Department of Conservation’s (DOC) intensive predator control efforts are working at reducing stoat numbers, the biggest threat to the flightless, iridescent blue birds. The national takahē population now numbers around 500, with annual growth of around 8%.

Wellington bird counts soaring: the CBD might be in a slump, but the birds of Wellington are having the time of their lives. Thanks to Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne, Predator Free Wellington, Capital Kiwi, and a horde of volunteer trappers, native bird numbers are booming so hard, even Leonardo Di Caprio noticed. Since 2011, kererū numbers have soared by 243%, kākā by 170%, tūī by 93% and pīwakawaka (fantail) by 37%. These numbers should only go up as the Predator Free Wellington project continues to get rid of predators from the region.

Tokoeka steps back from the brink: Fiordland tokoeka (southern brown kiwi) are reversing their extinction trend for the first time in their conservation history. DOC’s hard-out predator control targeting stoats means chick survival has gone from zero in 2020 to 70% in 2024. Once kiwi chicks are over 1kg, they can hold their own against stoats. The population is now growing by 2%.

Surprise sightings

Kiwi here, there, everywhere: Wild kiwi turned up on backyard security cameras and thrilled mountain bikers in 2024 as they expand their home range in the hills around Wellington. It’s a sweet reward for the Capital Kiwi project, which released 138 kiwi-nui (North Island brown kiwi) into the capital’s southwest coast, an area robustly protected by more than 4,600 stoat traps. Keep an eye out: encounters will increase as kiwi establish, breed and disperse. 

Kōkako spread through Auckland forest: it started with just one pair, and now there are 250 kōkako in the Hūnua Ranges — three cheers for the volunteers who have spent 20 years working on the recovery of this soft grey, Zorro-masked, blue-wattled songbird. In March 2024, kōkako were spotted at Hūnua Falls, well outside their recovery zone, showing that efforts are helping this species repopulate and spread.  

Dwarf discovery: a thriving population of dwarf galaxias was found in a river in the Manawatū-Whanganui region during a routine water quality survey in January 2024. You’re excused if you’ve never heard of this tiny endangered fish. Like all galaxiids, they have no scales and instead have thick, leathery skin and depend on trout-free, shady streams. Their resurgence in the Mangawharariki River shows good water quality and the impact of local farmers fencing off the river and its tributaries to keep stock and sediment out. 

Record wins

Record-tying albatross season: Taiaroa Head near Dunedin saw 33 toroa (northern royal albatross) fledge, tying 2023’s record-breaking season. DOC staff work tirelessly, trapping stoats, incubating eggs, and monitoring chicks. These humongous fluffy chicks will head to sea for three to four years to satisfy their wanderlust before returning home to mate.

Largest bat sleepover ever recorded: 275 pekapeka (long-tailed bat), about the size of your thumb, were found cosied up in a tree roost at Whirinaki Te Pua ā Tāne in the Bay of Plenty. It’s a major milestone for New Zealand’s seriously threatened (and only) land mammal.

Tiny triumphs

Endangered rock wren holding its own: in the Southern Alps, pīwauwau/tuke (rock wren) numbers are rising in areas with predator control. A five-year DOC study found at least double the number of birds in areas with targeted trapping and 1080 drops. These plucky birds, with olive green plumage on top and a sunny yellow belly, don’t fly much. Instead, they hop, flit, and nest on the ground, making them easy prey for rats and stoats. The stakes are high, as five out of seven wren species in New Zealand have already gone extinct.

Mistletoe blossoms: it turns out Aotearoa has a semi-parasitic native mistletoe, and great news, its abundance has increased by more than 3600% in Tikitapu Scenic Reserve in Rotorua. It has taken 20 years, but volunteers are stoked that their animal pest and weed control is paying off for green and white mistletoe species. You’re unlikely to catch anyone kissing under the flowering shrub, rather native birds and insects flocking to it as a food source.

Uptick in bugs: it’s not all about the cute and feathery. New research found native beetles are nearly twice as abundant in the Okoheriki forest compared to nearby forests without pest control. This is largely thanks to Rotorua Canopy Tours, which cares for the forest it whisks people through on ziplines. Their trapping and planting means the spiny longhorn beetle, plus three new undescribed species, aren’t being eaten up by rats.

Allison Hess is a writer who works for Predator Free NZ.

A lot of my friendships these days feel more like external audits, and it’s making me dread our coffee dates.

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz

Dear Hera,

I am seeking your advice on catch-up friendships.

I think most people have friendships that don’t form part of their day to day life, but are long term if not lifelong, and involve “catching up” over coffee/dinner/drinks every few months or so.

I often find these catch-ups to be some type of audit exercise, in which people ask routine questions about my professional/love/family life as if we are ticking off items on the list: “How is work? Are you going to have another child? Is your sister still in the psych ward?”

At best, I feel bored and like there is no actual connection between us. At worst, I feel I am being reviewed in such a clunky and often meaningless way, and expected to talk in depth about matters that may not feel great (like my various family members’ severe mental health issues and/or involvement with the criminal justice system).  

Not everyone is like this. With some people, no matter how much time has passed, it’s like no time has passed (and I will for sure end up telling them about any major things that have happened anyway). But many people do socialise in this way, by asking a million review style questions that I have come to struggle with.

The thing is, these “catch-up” people are well-intentioned. I catch up with these people because I do want the relationship. And they are all kind people.

How do I meaningfully spend time with these people without feeling audited? Is it extremely rude to say to them, hey, it would be great if you don’t conduct this kind of review of my lifestyle questionnaire? I would love to look forward to seeing these people I do care about, rather than dreading the mandatory list of general and sometimes invasive enquiries.

Fondest regards and many thanks in advance,

Auditee 

Dear Auditee,

I recently saw a picture of a taxi cab where the driver had laminated several A4 page lists of movies and sports teams he liked, and taped them to the glass passenger partition, so people could discuss them with him if there was anything they had in common. I thought this was an ingenious way of initiating conversations with strangers that didn’t revolve around “Have you had a busy night then?” Sadly, printing out a laminated list of your interests and preferred conversation topics and handing them out to friends is considered rude.

Meeting people for a “catch-up” drink is a beloved and time-honoured tradition, in which asking rapid-fire personal questions is not only acceptable but widely considered polite. Trying to avoid discussing your love life, job prospects and ongoing family issues over an intimate, Frasier-style cappuccino, is like going on a VIP behind-the-scenes tour of the Cheesecake Factory, and complaining that all they talked about was the commercial manufacture of cheesecake. No amount of spontaneously changing the subject to whale gestational periods or the relationship between time and consciousness is going to let you off the hook. 

You describe these catch-ups as being formulaic, boring and invasive. Which only goes to show that one man’s paradise is another man’s purgatory. I’m sure your friends are interested in hearing about your life and have no idea they’re unwittingly driving you insane. 

That doesn’t mean you’re in the wrong here. It’s fine to want to hang out with people without immediately getting the third degree. Some people truly have the gift of making any topic interesting, and there’s nothing better than finding someone you have a natural rapport with. But there will always be people who are harder to hold a conversation with. 

My first suggestion is to stop arranging catch-ups at cafes, restaurants, bars or anywhere you’re forced to sit face-to-face across a small table for the duration of one to two beverages. There’s something about this setup which really lends itself to the kind of forced intimacy/checklist questions you specifically hate. 

I’m not saying you have to respond to every coffee invitation with a counteroffer for laser tag or a trip to the Natural History Museum. But I do think changing the location of these meet-ups might be a good start. Even something as simple as picking up a coffee and going for a walk might be enough to make the conversation feel more natural and less like an ongoing criminal investigation. Is there an activity or hobby your friend might be interested in? It’s hard to ask invasive personal questions when you’re at an indoor archery club, or watching a film. 

You could, as you suggested, ask your friends to cut it out. But if you don’t know each other very well, you risk making the situation awkward and your friend self-conscious. It is, however, completely fine to refuse to answer any question that’s too personal or you don’t feel like revisiting every three months. There are a hundred ways of saying “I’m so sick of talking about my horrible job, especially when I’m not getting paid to think about it, can we change the subject?” I don’t think anyone would be offended by that.

I don’t know really if this advice will work. But it’s a lot easier to try meeting at a duck pond than it is to overhaul other people’s deeply ingrained conversational habits. That way, if they bring up a topic you don’t want to discuss, you can simply point and say “look at that duck.” If this doesn’t work and every catch-up still feels like a scheduled interrogation, you can confront the issue directly, or allow some of these friendships to fade. There’s no point in endlessly maintaining a relationship that only fills you with resentment and dread.

Either that or buy a laminator and go to town.

Good luck!