Wētā Conservation Charitable Trust

18/06/2026

A big thank you to Twisted Frequency Festival for donating the income of their 2026 merchandise sales to the Wētā Conservation Charitable Trust.

We really appreciate your support!

Thank you to David Tait and Twisted Frequency Festival for supporting the Wētā Conservation Charitable Trust

16/06/2026

Winter 2026 Forest & Bird magazine is here - and it's great reading Lily Duval's article on our giant wētā surveys from last summer.

Some worrying results for the Southern Alps giant wētā though. In Price Basin (Westland), our find rate was more than 90% lower than in the last survey done in 1992. And in Fiordland, we didn't find any wētā at all, only rats.

We have a lot of work to do if we want to save these precious insects.

14/06/2026

Mountain stone wētā (Hemideina maori) and its amazing ability to survive winter in the New Zealand mountains

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1E4fUCY5Aq/

20/05/2026

A predator exclusion fence was built in the drylands of Patersons Terrace, Tekapo, in 2018 to protect the Nationally Endangered robust grasshopper. While any benefit to this species is yet to be proven, the Mackenzie Country endemic Tekapo ground wētā has been found inside the enclosure at densities almost five times higher than on the outside.

A predator exclusion fence was built in the drylands of Patersons Terrace, Tekapo, in 2018 to protect the Nationally Endangered robust grasshopper. While any benefit to this species is yet to be pr…

19/05/2026

Great news about the release of 450 wētāpunga onto Matakohe / Limestone Island in Whangārei Harbour.

The wētā were captive reared at Butterfly Creek. Well done to all involved.

The $15,000 project took five years to plan and needed specific consents.

07/05/2026

Happy 100th birthday to one of the most wonderful men to ever grace our planet

Happy birthday to the legendary Sir David Attenborough who turns 100 today. Rā whānau ki a koe Sir David!

He's a giant in conservation who has spent his life capturing and sharing the incredible species and ecosystems across our planet, including species from Aotearoa New Zealand.

Sir David is a long admirer of New Zealand’s conservation efforts and has been a champion for our biodiversity. He’s even particularly fond of the kākāpō!

For those of you in Dunedin, Tūhura Otago Museum is celebrating him with a family fun birthday party tomorrow. Take your whānau along, Tūhura Otago Museum 10am - 3pm.

Hopefully we’ll see some budding conservationists from Kiwi Conservation Club coming along, too!!

17/04/2026

Mercury Island tusked wētā

After facing the brink of extinction, the world's largest tusked wētā species have expanded into an island-wide population.

Find out more about the recovery of the species and their eating habits on Ohinau Island here: doi.org/10.3897/jor.35.131747

Wildlife Management International University of Otago Department of Conservation

16/03/2026

A new book on the Mercury Island tusked wētā is available. Free to anyone, in electronic format only.

A very generous gift from Ian Stringer to New Zealand's conservation community.

“This is the story of how dedicated people prevented this giant of an insect from going extinct. It recounts the adventures they had, the joy of discovery and despondence of failure, the coop…

10/03/2026

Nationally Endangered Southern Alps Giant Wētā are rugged, incredibly good looking, the perfect size but difficult to spot, especially at night in the alpine areas where they like to hang out.

Twin Needle bum bags are rugged, incredibly good looking, the perfect size but extraordinarily EASY to spot in almost any environment.

Thank you Twin Needle for the donation of 4 of these awesome bum bags, we love them and they certainly helped with the wētā searching.

Click the link to learn more about what makes the capsule 2 bum bag from Twin Needle so good for our monitoring work and if anyone is in the market for a bum bag, get one of these.



https://wetaconservation.org.nz/2026/03/07/thank-you-twin-needle/

24/02/2026

There have been quite a few additions to wētā taxonomy in recent times.

You can read a summary here:

In two separate papers, a new species of tokoriro from Rakiura / Stewart Island and five species of ground wētā from New Zealand’s South Island have been described