In New Zealand, the return of wild takahē populations marks a cautiously celebrated conservation victory, and the return of one of the world’s rarest creatures. The birds had been formally declared extinct in 1898, their already-reduced population devastated by the arrival of European settlers’ animal companions: stoats, cats, ferrets and rats. After their rediscovery in 1948, their numbers are now at about 500, growing at about 8% a year.
New Zealand doesn’t really have any deadly animals.
No scorpions, snakes (other than the very appearance of a sea-snake), crocs, large cats, bears, etc. Our most venomous spiders can generally only make most people a little bit unwell. We might occasionally see a potentially dangerous shark but they’re so rare that I can’t recall when a notable attack happened.
Our insects aren’t generally disease spreaders - though we’ve come close a few times to some getting a foothold.
Colonists introduced many destructive species but nothing very personally dangerous. In theory there could still be moose, but it seems unlikely.
The only NZ native land-mammal is a tiny bat as far as I know.
There is the small problem with orcs, goblins, trolls and Australians… but it’s okay, we have a wizard (retired?).
How very dare you. Two tiny bats!
I missed the other ones… Must’ve been hiding behind the first one…
Long tailed bat and short tailed bat.
We used to have 3 but the bigger version of short tailed bats died out.
Two! Two bats!
(The actual bats don’t look anything like these bats. This is just a tribute)
Thank you for all that! As I said, we don’t seem to get taught much about that part of the world. LotR is probably the only NZ thing I can recall of the top of my head, which is pretty embarrassing.
In that case let’s really blow your mind…
A Kiwi is a bird or a person, not a fruit.
… Also New Zealand is comprised of three major islands North Island, South Island and West Island… Also some of my facts may be slightly inaccurate - but not the bit about the fruit.
I had heard the kiwi stuff, but you had me second guessing myself!
I did look up the island names since I had never heard Aotearoa before, and a few of the blurbs say there are a few hundred actual islands that make up New Zealand, but it seems nobody can agree on an actual number because they all have a different estimate.