The Pigeon Express
A curious young seal has been returned to the sea after breaking into a New Zealand home, harassing the resident cat, hanging about in the hallway for a couple of hours while the children slept upstairs, and miraculously ruining nothing. The Ross family of Mt Maunganui were more than a little surprised to find the […]
New Zealand has fully reopened to international visitors, lifting the last remnants of one of the toughest border regimes introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The country began reopening its borders in February with the lifting of restrictions on New Zealand citizens, followed in May by the return of tourists from more than 50 countries including […]
An Australian woman recently fell into a geothermal sinkhole that opened up beneath her in a popular tourist village in New Zealand. According to reports the woman was rushed to a nearby hospital after suffering severe injuries. She was swallowed by a two-metre-wide hole when it opened suddenly on a footpath near the entrance of […]
A New Zealand resident spotted a “bizarre but very cool” blue spiral above her house following a SpaceX launch on Sunday (June 19). Clare Rehill photographed the spiral in the sky above Queenstown, a town on New Zealand’s South Island. She posted(opens in new tab) the photo on Twitter early in the morning her time […]
Little blue penguins native to New Zealand have been washing up dead on the country’s beaches, in what experts say are more frequent mass die-offs amid changing climate patterns. Hundreds of lifeless birds have been found in northern New Zealand since early May, though the exact number is difficult to determine and reports are still […]
The US-New Zealand Rocket Lab company has taken a big step forward in its quest to re-use its launch vehicles by catching one as it fell back to Earth. A helicopter grabbed the booster in mid-air as it parachuted back towards the Pacific Ocean after a mission to orbit 34 satellites. The pilots weren’t entirely […]
A doctor originally from Swansea, Wales has gone missing in New Zealand. David Holland, 31, vanished on Friday, 11 March after telling friends that he was going for a swim at a beach near his home in Tauranga on North Island. Police said he then failed to turn up for work, which was out of […]
At least 31 pilot whales have died after a mass stranding at a New Zealand beach known to be a notorious spot for whale deaths. Wildlife officials said the pod was first spotted on Thursday, beached across three kilometres of Farewell Spit on the South Island. On Friday, rescuers managed to refloat five whales who […]
New Zealand has brought forward plans to reopen its borders to international travellers after a Covid lockout of more than two years. Australians will be allowed to enter the country without needing to quarantine or isolate from 13 April. Fully vaccinated travellers from about 60 countries on a visa-waiver list will be able to arrive […]
New Zealand scientists discovered a rare baby ghost shark, a little-known species of fish that lives in the shadowy depths of the ocean. Ghost sharks, also known as chimaera are rarely spotted, and sightings of their young are even more uncommon. The newly-hatched shark was collected at a depth of about 1.2km underwater near the […]
As hospital staff tried to save the life of a 2-year-old boy run over, a family member swiped a doctor’s two phones and a bank card and went on a spending spree. The child died a short time later but Melissa Herewini had already taken the bank card to four stores in Rotorua and bought […]
A magnitude 6.2 earthquake has been recorded off the coast of Tonga almost two weeks after the Pacific kingdom was devastated by a volcanic eruption and tsunami. The epicentre was located 219km northwest of Pangai, a town on the remote island of Lifuka, at a depth of 14.5km, according to United States Geological Survey (USGS) […]