Hi my name is Bennet, and I’m 9 years old. This summer at the beach we saw some people who caught 2 small octopus and stuffed them alive into clear containers, with no water. I was upset because octopus are smart and they can suffer, and I couldn’t do anything to help them. I didn’t know […]

It’s a big responsibility looking after our oceans.  Did you know we have an area of water more than fifteen times the size of New Zealand’s land mass in our care? And that includes all the marine life within it! Our Marine Reserves Act has a set of rules that help us to manage some of our ocean biodiversity.   Marine reserves […]

Popoto – Māui’s dolphins – face new threats all the time. Maria Gill has the latest. New Zealand’s Government has brought in rules to restrict deadly fishing practices along parts of the North Island’s west coast, where popoto live. They’ve also made an area – from Maunganui Bluff to Taranaki’s Oakura Beach – a marine […]

Before humans came to New Zealand, sea lions lived around the whole coast. But Māori and Europeans hunted them – for meat, oil, and skins – until only a few colonies remained in the south. Laws were brought in to protect them, but sea lions are still in terrible trouble. During the past 15 years, sea lion pup survival has […]