The Tuku Nature Reserve is a nature reserve on

Chatham Island Chatham Island ( ) ( Moriori: , 'Misty Sun'; ) is the largest island of the Chatham Islands group, in the south Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is said to be "halfway between the equator and the pole, a ...

, New Zealand, in the Tuku-a-tamatea (Tuku) River Valley in the south-west of the island. The 1238 hectares of land, largely covered with dense native forest, are owned by the

New Zealand government The New Zealand Government () is the central government through which political authority is exercised in New Zealand. As in most other parliamentary democracies, the term "Government" refers chiefly to the executive branch, and more specifica ...

and is managed by its

Department of Conservation Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

Before Crown ownership, the land was owned by Manuel and Evelyn Tuanui. The Tuanuis assisted ornithologist David Crockett in discovering the

magenta petrel The magenta petrel (''Pterodroma magentae''), or Chatham Island tāiko, is a small seabird in the gadfly petrel genus, ''Pterodroma''. Found exclusively on Chatham Island, New Zealand, it is one of the rarest birds in the world, believed to be e ...

(''Pterodroma magentae''), or Chatham Island tāiko, on the land in 1978. This small burrow-nesting

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine ecosystem, marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ...

had been considered extinct for over 100 years, and remains

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

. The Tuanuis donated the land that now forms the Reserve in 1983 for the conservation management of the tāiko, with adjacent land covenanted for the same purpose. The reserve is important for the conservation of the tāiko. As of 2004, 80% of tāiko breeding burrows are inside the reserve.

Flora and fauna

The reserve comprises an area of forested, peat-covered tableland dissected by the Tuku River and its tributaries and dominated by tarahinau. The valley also contains kōpi, karamū, hoho and matipō, with abundant

tree fern Tree ferns are arborescent (tree-like) ferns that grow with a trunk (botany), trunk elevating the fronds above ground level, making them trees. Many extant tree ferns are members of the order Cyatheales, to which belong the families Cyatheaceae ( ...

s. As well as the tāiko, the reserve is important for the conservation of other animals and plants endemic to the Chatham Islands, such as the parea or Chatham Islands pigeon.

References

Geography of the Chatham Islands Nature reserves in New Zealand Chatham Island {{OutlyingNZ-geo-stub