Column: Think like a skink

Waikato Regional Council Biodiversity Sites Lead Jacob Dexter encourages coastal communities to think like a skink and support strategies by local councils and Coastcare groups to ‘rewild’ and create habitat for native fauna with backdune areas.??

In late 2023, we made the call to put this season's Coastcare earthworks on hold until more information was gathered about the fauna present in our sand dunes.??

This decision came about after Coastcare volunteers and staff had been observing quite a lot of native lizards and other native fauna in the dunes along Coromandel’s east coast.?

Native fauna that are threatened or at risk of extinction are fully protected by the Wildlife Act (1953), which means they cannot be harmed or disturbed without a permit from the Department of Conservation (DOC).?

It is our intention to learn more about the creatures that are making our dunes ‘home’, and to then seek approval from DOC for the larger scale Coastcare projects that require earthworks.?

New Zealand's coastal fauna have the same basic survival requirements as we humans: adequate food and water, shelter from the extremes of heat and cold, and protection from predators.??

Lizards have little in the way of natural defences, so they love the complex and dense vegetation found naturally in back dune areas. The thicker and messier, the better!

They need cover when hunting, feeding and resting, and for protection from predators. Lizards eat small fruits, nectar and small invertebrates (like sand hoppers, flies and moths). Dense swaths of Muehlenbeckia, knobby club rush (wiwi), flaxes, toetoe, sand coprosma, Pimelea, intermixed with taller akeake and pōhutukawa, make for ideal habitat and foraging. Natural coastal debris like driftwood and seaweed supply further food resources.?? ??

Removing weeds from the foredunes is necessary, as it allows the sand-catching, dune building spinifex and pīngao to dominate. Removing weeds from backdunes is also desirable, but we need to do this in a manner that doesn't further fragment or reduce habitat for coastal fauna.??

Native fauna has adapted to inhabit weedier sites. Rank grasses, agapanthus, ice plant, bushy asparagus, ivy and other exotic plants may be less then desirable, but they still provide the resources that lizards and insects need to survive.??

There is so much conservation work happening all around the Coromandel, and having these lizards return to our beaches in these numbers is a testament to the fact that, together, all the little projects scattered around the peninsula have resulted in something quite extraordinary.?Now we must work together to protect it.

In July this year, Coastcare staff and a herpetologist spent a week assessing fauna habitat at Coastcare sites. A few lizards were observed, as well as a North Island fern bird (At Risk-Declining).??

The group sought to view the dunes as if through the eyes of the critters living there, with our motto for the week being “think like a skink”. A further comprehensive fauna survey is scheduled for the warmer spring months of October to November 2024, when lizards are more active.???

We encourage our coastal communities to think like a skink, too, and support any strategies by council and Coastcare to ‘rewild’ and create fauna habitat within backdune areas. Doing this will help protect our precious taonga – our native lizards, invertebrates and birds – by giving them a suitable habitat to thrive and live peacefully.?

This planting season, we are working with Coastcare volunteer groups to improve existing back dune areas with infill planting of native plants that provide native food and shelter. The next step is to work with coastal volunteers to implement pest-trapping lines along the dunes to control rats and mice.??

There is so much conservation work happening all around the Coromandel, and having these lizards return to our beaches in these numbers is a testament to the fact that, together, all the little projects scattered around the peninsula have resulted in something quite extraordinary.??

Now we must work together to protect it.?