Science Media Centre

The number of Northern Royal albatrosses living on some rocky sea-stacks near the Chatham Islands have been counted from space, the first time an entire population has been counted by satellite. The Northern Royal albatross is endemic to New Zealand, but populations have been hard to count — especially the colonies on remote, inaccessible islands. […]

The discovery of an extinct sea lion from the Chatham Islands has researchers concerned that modern levels of by-catch could drive the remaining local species extinct. University of Otago scientists identified the extinct Chatham Island sea lion and found it was genetically distinct from the modern population that lives in the Auckland and Campbell Islands […]

New Zealand officially has a new species of parrot, but unfortunately it has already been extinct for several hundred years. A study, led by Landcare Research, analysed fossil parrot bones from the Chatham Islands and confirmed that they represent a distinct species that is unique to the island group but closely related to New Zealand’s kaka. Scientists […]

The Chatham Albatross, one of the world’s most endangered birds, is no longer quite as endangered as once it was, according to Canterbury researcher Paul Scofield. The birds’ population has stabilised over the last few decades, and it has been downgraded to ‘vulnerable’ on the latest Red List. An excerpt: (read in full here) “Counts […]