Tuatara numbers are scaling up towards triple figures at Brook Waimārama Sanctuary with 35 of the taonga species arriving on Sunday.
Flown in by helicopter after a team collected the male and female adults across four days from the off-limits Takapourewa (Stephens Island) in the Marlborough Sounds, where tuatara are “plentiful”, they were warmly welcomed to the sanctuary by Ngāti Koata, who act as their guardians.
Checked and marked, they soon darted into their new boltholes upon release.
The move also helps ease pressure on Takapourewa's population of Hamilton's Frog, which Ngāti Koata environment manager Neil Deans says is "one of only two in the world in the wild".
Like the historic arrival of 56 tuatara from captive populations in 2024, which marked the first mainland translocation of the reptile in Te Tau Ihu, this latest delivery is a shared triumph for the sanctuary and local iwi.
Neil says it will further contribute to giving the local tuatara population a foothold.
"We're obviously very keen to make sure that the cultural connection and the environmental success is achieved here for the sanctuary and a place where people can come in and see these tuatara in a semi-wild state here," he says.
Sanctuary chief executive Chris McCormack says the 56 which arrived in 2024 had since acquainted themselves with the sanctuary and could indicate baby tuatara are on the breeding horizon.
He says Sunday’s arrival also adds greater gender diversity to the existing tuatara population.
