Newly discovered Muriwai gecko ‘just hanging on’
Dune-driving 4WDs are putting at risk a rare and important gecko on Auckland’s doorstep. Kendall Hutt reports.
WHENtalking about the Muriwai gecko – a small, sandycoloured gecko unique to Auckland’s west coast – conservationists describe its future as ‘‘dire’’ and ‘‘highly imperilled’’.
It was officially classified as a newly-discovered species in the 2000s – having previously been spotted in the 1950s, where it was mistaken for a common gecko.
Herpetologist Dylan van Winkel explains threats to its dune habitat – which spans Manukau north to Kaipara – include four-wheel drives, cats, ferrets, mice and stoats while deer and rabbits are also affecting their habitat.
A senior ecologist with Bioresearches, van Winkel says 4WDs illegally tearing through Muriwai’s dunes is the biggest threat to the unique species’ survival.
Muriwai beach is one of just two Auckland beaches where people are allowed to drive – with a special permit. However, manywithout permits still drive on the beach.
Safety concerns and fire risks led to a decision to ban vehicles until January 10 but Auckland Council said in the 12 months to June, 2715 people had applied for and obtained a permit to drive on the beach – estimated to be fewer than half of the number of vehicles that actually drive on it.
Van Winkel describes the geckos as being ‘‘absolutely slaughtered’’ by the 4WDs. As part of an Auckland Council survey and monitoring programme on the geckos, he says he has found juvenile Muriwai geckos one year, only to go back the nest year and find them ‘‘completely gone’’.
The council’s monitoring contract has been in place since early 2019, though van Winkel had already been doing the work for three years prior.
A 2017-18 council-funded survey identified an 8km strip of land as the most important site for the species’ ongoing management – which became the base of the monitoring programme. It costs $22,000 annually and is set down for three years.
‘‘If we don’t set aside protected areas, the Muriwai gecko has a pretty dire future,’’ van Winkel said.
Muriwai park ranger Aimee Hoeberigs said she sees 4WDs in the geckos’ dunes daily. ‘‘We find we’ll be monitoring and 4WDs will come into illegal areas, driving over their habitat and coming into the survey area.’’
She says those using the area recreationally – 4WDs, motorbikes, pedestrians and horse riders – are not aware of the geckos.
Rangers are trying to raise awareness and putting up fences where dunes meet the high-tide, as well as felling pine trees and using the wood to create barriers.
Hoeberigs said Auckland Council is taking an educationfirst approach to the issue, but repeat offenders and those with a ‘‘bad attitude’’ are sometimes trespassed, referred to police or prosecution is sought under the Resource Management Act.
‘‘The most heartbreaking thing to see are the repeat offenders because they know what they’re doing is wrong and despite us talking to them, they just go ahead, Hoeberigs said.
‘‘Once this habitat is gone, then potentially gecko will be gone.’’
The Muriwai gecko’s official discovery is so new, it does not even have a scientific name. It was first spotted in 1954 by a bird expert (ornithologist) on tiny Oaia Island, south of Muriwai beach.
Van Winkel says the ornithologist spotted a gecko on the rocks and took some photographs. They noted the observation in a paper, but that was the extent of it until 2010.
When Auckland Council staff went to the island that year, they found more geckos, took photos and showed them to a bunch of reptile experts who tentatively said they were Raukawa/ common geckos.
But when two geckos were found north of the beach in 2013, sharing the same striped patterning and features as the geckos on Oaia Island, experts began to think there was a distinct species lurking under
their noses.
Van Winkel says one of the geckos was given to an expert friend who kept it in captivity for a ‘‘couple of years’’ and took measurements. ‘‘That waswhen a team of us thought we were starting to look at a new species due to the character of their feet.’’
He points out the Muriwai gecko has ‘‘really short toes’’.
It was not until after 2014 when more geckos were collected and their DNA sequenced, that what is now known as the Muriwai gecko came to be classed as a distinct species.
‘‘There’s this new species on our doorstep in New Zealand’s most populated city. It opens up what else can be surviving that people don’t know about.’’
The Muriwai gecko is sandycoloured and has three to four vertical stripes from its neck to the base of its tail. It is flecked with black spots. The geckos on Oaia Island have the ‘‘same general patterning’’ but are more grey.
There are fewer than 200 known individuals, so it is considered ‘‘Nationally Critical’’, but van Winkel said its threat classification may be downgraded soon.
But there is actually so little known about it, that Auckland Council and Auckland Zoo are carrying out surveys to gauge numbers and how far along the west coast it lives.
Richard Gibson, Auckland
Zoo’s head of life science, said the survey north of the Kaipara at
Pouto and near Karioitahi hopes to dig into whether the gecko ‘‘might be holding on somewhere else’’.
‘‘Pouto is a big sandy dune habitat at the north of the Kaipara, which is the perfect habitat from what we know.’’
The zoo started planning its field work in 2018. ‘‘Land access was very complicated to achieve, requiring numerous consultations and meetings.’’
More than 370 hours has been spent on planning and field work, to the tune of about
$20,000.
Members of the zoo’s ectotherm team have designed and built a handful of refuges.
‘‘They are dry when it is raining and warm when it is cold. It’s a place for geckos to hide and is safe from predators.’’
Teams go out twice a year to check sites for geckos and any foundwill be carefully captured, measured, weighed and their sex determined before the information is recorded.
Each gecko is photographed and has a small, temporary mark placed on its body.
But so far, no Muriwai geckos have been found at Pouto or Karioitahi.
‘‘It’s like sticking a finger in a pie or looking for a needle in a haystack,’’ Gibson says. ‘‘We’re sadly expecting to find nothing. If we’re wrong, then it will be cause for massive celebration. It means there is more significant distribution and more numbers than we thought.’’
‘‘They probably do occur further north and south in little pockets of untouched dune land, and we just haven’t found them yet,’’ van Winkel says, with a little more optimism.
Having visited its Muriwai home, Gibson describes the gecko as ‘‘just hanging on’’ there due to threats to its coastal habitat.
Like van Winkel, he feels 4WDs are at the top of the threat list.
‘‘4WD users are busting through the sand dunes and are destroying what is left of their habitat,’’ Gibson says.
‘‘The last time I was there, 4WDswere driving up and through the dunes. These last few sites where they’re hanging on, this is the last thing they need on top of the other threats.
‘‘There’s this gecko on the doorstep of Auckland, found nowhere else in the world and in New Zealand. It should be a source of Auckland pride.’’
Gibson wants to the see the Muriwai gecko physically protected with more signage, more fencing and either the control or removal of predators.
He says with a shortage of suitable off-shore islands, there needs to be recognition the species will need fenced mainland reserves as ‘‘the only way we can guarantee they’re not going to be nailed by predators’’.
Gibson feels the gecko is just one of dozens of lizard species in similar situations.
‘‘It’s awesome new recognition for an awesome lizard, but we need to put our game for the 60 other lizard species. Let’s celebrate the Muriwai gecko, but recognise it’s part of amuch greater challenge.’’
Auckland Council ecologist JacindaWoolly said the whole point of the targeted survey and monitoring programme is to get ‘‘baseline information’’ about the gecko to inform ‘‘management actions’’ going forward.
She says a starting point would be a combination of pest management and tackling the 4WD issue to restore the geckos’ habitat.
‘‘If that doesn’t help, then we’d look at other conservation strategies.’’
Van Winkel said ultimately removing all the pressures, largely human, would help the Muriwai gecko survive.
‘‘What we need is for them to thrive, but how we do that is tricky.’’