Features

Haven for native wildlife

Geckos and skinks

Maud is also one of only two locations for the vulnerable Stephens Island striped gecko, one of New Zealand’s rarest geckos. The island also harbours very healthy populations of the common gecko, brown skink and common skink. The speckled skink has been introduced as part of restoring the island’s natural biodiversity.

Maud Island frog on lichen

Maud Island frog

Te Hoiere’s largest mature forest remnant supports virtually the entire population of the threatened pakeka/Maud Island frog – an estimated 20,000.

Invertebrates

The island is a stronghold for a number of invertebrate species now extinct or greatly restricted in range on the mainland. These include the giant flesh-eating snail Powelliphanta hochstetteri obscura, the Cook Strait click beetle and the flax weevil. Tree weta, ground weta and over four species of cave weta also inhabit the island.

Translocations

Some species do not naturally occur on the island but have been put there as part of efforts to establish healthy populations in predator-free habitat. The Cook Strait giant weta is one such species, brought to Te Hoiere in 1977. The move has been a success story with numbers of these gentle giants now in their thousands.

Takahe, Maud Island

Endangered takahe were first put on Te Hoiere in 1984 and the island is now an integral part of DOC’s Takahe Recovery Programme.

Birds

Other birds inhabiting the island include kereru/New Zealand wood pigeon, tui, bellbird, fantail, pipit, silvereye, shining cuckoo, kingfisher, falcon, kahu/harrier and morepork. Around its coast can be found black-backed and red-billed gulls, little blue penguins, variable oystercatchers, reef herons, spotted, pied, little and king shags, fluttering shearwater, Caspian and white-fronted terns, black-fronted terns and arctic skua.

Vegetation

A 15-hectare remnant in Home Bay exemplifies the original lush forest that covered all of Te Hoiere before being razed for pasture. Its dominant trees include kohekohe, tawa, nikau, pukatea and mahoe. Large emergent podocarps were also once a significant element of the forest, especially matai, miro and rimu but these were largely lost when the island was cleared.

The remainder of the island is cloaked in young regenerating forest and scrub communities with a predominance of tauhau, fiver-finger, mahoe, manuka, kaikomako, mamaku/tree fern and exotic species tree lucerne and Spanish heath. The re-vegetation continues to expand in the absence of pests such as possums, goats, rats and deer.

Several species of plants uncommon in the Marlborough Sounds or rare on the mainland occur naturally on Maud. These include the large-leaved milk tree, hutu, Sonchus kirkii and renga renga lily. A nationally-threatened shrub from Titirangi (Hebe speciosa has been introduced to Te Hoiere in an effort to establish a second South Island population.

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