New Zealand Conservation Trust – Travelling tuatara teaches pest-free goals
It’s both a perk and a responsibility having the task of transporting live tuatara to schools and community groups in the greater Christchurch area for educational purposes.
“I always think, please don’t let me have an accident,” says Jan Hellyer about her trips out with one of New Zealand’s largest reptiles.
Jan averages at least one ‘outing’ a week with her precious cargo, as part of her role as Resource and Education Coordinator for the New Zealand Conservation Trust. Her access to tuatara is through a collaborative agreement with Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Northwood, the site from which the trust operates. The two organisations have a decades-long working partnership.
“I’ve got a big sign on top of the box: ‘Tuatara in Transit’,” laughs Jan. The sign is intended to act as a prompt to would-be rescuers to make sure the tuatara doesn’t escape, in the unlikely event that Jan is incapacitated in a road incident.
All going to plan, the tuatara remains in a purposefully made display box for its entire outing. No handling is allowed.
Tuatara have ‘at risk’ status from the Department of Conservation (DOC) and can live up to 100 years of age. The cold-blooded creatures have evolutionary links to the dinosaurs and so their importance is internationally recognised. They feature as part of the trust’s education programme as a way to highlight how pest animals threaten New Zealand’s native wildlife.
Jan relies on the Willowbank staff to select a tuatara for each trip and to let her know its sex. The reserve holds a permit from DOC, for what is the only ‘travelling tuatara’ programme in the South island if not the country.
“Wherever I go anywhere, people want to know if they’re male or female and how old they are. Those are the two common questions,” she says.
The trusts’ education programme caters to pre-school children and older, and explains the impact that introduced animals such as rats, mice, stoats and ferrets have on New Zealand’s native wildlife. Even hedgehogs and feral cats get a mention.
“If I ask kids ‘Do you know what the word extinct means?’, they just about all say yes. So there definitely is an understanding of the words, whether they know that that ‘cute’ hedgehog is actually going to eat the lizards and skinks and the baby birds in your garden,” says Jan.
As well as live tuatara – with which there’s a ‘look, don’t touch’ policy – Jan often takes along taxidermied examples of stoats, weasels and ferrets. She says city youngsters are less likely to be familiar with these introduced pests.
“I went out to Darfield preschool about a week ago and said to the kids ‘do you know what this is?’. Straight away a whole bunch of them knew it was a stoat,” says Jan. “That’s the difference: rural kids have probably seen them running along the road!”
Originally from South Africa, Jan has been involved with the trust for 20 years. Another key aspect of her role is overseeing pest trapping projects run by various teams in five locations including Styx Mill Reserve and Lake Sumner Forest Park in central Canterbury. About 450 pest-traps are regularly monitored by teams of volunteers. A total of more than 3100 pest animals have been culled during the 4 to 6 years that each project has been operating.
Photos: (L) Jan at Willowbank Nature Reserve (M Blakie)
(R) Two residents from George Manning Retirement Village are fascinated by the tuatara (photo courtesy of J Hellyer).
(July 2024)
