Threats to gecko
Threat status
Striped gecko (Hoplodactylus stephensi)
from the Sounds Area
All New Zealand geckos are fully protected, meaning that they may only be handled, collected or kept in captivity under permit. It is illegal to deliberately harm them.
Twenty-one species or subspecies are threatened; two of these (the Coromandel population of the striped gecko H. stephensi and Hoplodactylus sp. "Open Bay Islands gecko") have been ranked as Nationally Critical by the Department of Conservation. One species is now extinct (Kawekaweau; H. delcourti).
Specific threats
There are two main threats to geckos: predation and habitat destruction.
All New Zealand geckos are vulnerable to mammalian predation. Predators include mice, rats, hedgehogs, weasels, stoats, ferrets, cats, possums and pigs. Since most of these predators are active at night and hunt on the ground, species that are large, terrestrial and/or nocturnal are more at risk than species that are smaller, arboreal (tree-dwelling) and/or diurnal. Small predators can follow the larger species but not the smaller ones into the crevices where they shelter and sleep.
Although habitat destruction is at a much lower level than it has been in the past, it is still a threat to New Zealand geckos. Enormous areas of forest have been cleared and burned. Tussock grasslands are still being burned, ploughed and converted to pasture, threatening geckos that live in rock outcrops or screes in the area.