Jewelled Geckos Successfully Reintroduced to New Zealand’s “Predator-free” Ecosanctuary at Orokonui

The globally rare Jewelled Gecko (right) is only found on New Zealand and is restricted to the southeast portion of the South Island. The IUCN considers it to be Endangered globally. I mentioned this was my favourite of the resident reptiles because I am just amazed by the beauty of these creatures (stunning green and white), and also because I had previously read about a very interesting reintroduction project with this species at Orokonui.

Written by C. Knox and J. Monks and published in the journal Animal Conservation in 2014, the team outlined the successful use of a soft release technique using penning to reduce dispersal of the lizards following translocations to the sanctuary.

‘Soft release’ generally entails measures used to ease the translocation of animals to a release site (moving to a new home can be stressful!). Whereas ‘hard-releases’ provide no such measures.

Essentially what Knox and Monks did was translocate 53 geckos of various ages to Orokonui, all of which were rescued from a location threatened with illegal collection for the pet trade. Forty-two of those animals were penned for 9-10 months, and eleven were released outside of the pen, ~200m away.

The penned animals were confined to an enclosure created within the ecosanctuary (think, fence within a fence) which essentially restricted the dispersal of the animals. The idea was to habituate the lizards to their new home by encouraging them to form new associations with the landscape and establish new home ranges. The pen was made from 0.5m high polyethylene plastic and covered an area of ~650 m2. The authors then followed a subset of 19 adults with radio transmitters (made in Canada by Holohil!) for three weeks in the spring. Half were from the pen and the other half were from outside the pen. Radio tracking began in 2012, immediately after the penned group was set free (when pen was removed), which occurred at the same time that the unpenned group was released.

Work at the Orokonui Ecosanctuary has contributed a seriously important advancement to the reintroduction biology of this species. Consider for a moment that 9 translocations with Jewelled Geckos and their close cousins (i.e., geckos of the Naultinus genus) had occurred in NZ prior to the 2012 study – all using “hard releases” (no pens), and all failed to detect more than two released animals after translocation.

Oh, and did I mention that not a single project could confirm whether or not the translocated animals resulted in population establishment. Meanwhile, today the Ecosanctuary website, under a photo of a Jewelled Gecko, proudly claims that “A population of more than 100 is breeding well at Orokonui”… 

Hats off to the tireless efforts of those dedicated Kiwi conservation biologists – unafraid to “have a go” at reintroductions when their wildlife is in peril. It may have taken a few attempts over the years with the Jewelled Gecko, but they kept trying and eventually figured it out. I am positive that we could learn a thing or two from the Orokonui “Lizard Pens” and the little jewels of the Otago forests.

-Jonathan Choquette, Lead Biologist – Ojibway Prairie Reptile Recovery