Giant wētā recovery: 11,000 wētāpunga released to 10 new wild sites

A new journal paper documents the 15-year recovery of wētāpunga, the largest species of Aotearoa New Zealand’s giant wētā.

Over 15 years, tens of thousands of wētāpunga were bred at Butterfly Creek and Auckland Zoo. That enabled 45 translocations of 11,000 wētā to 10 new wild sites, and the species’ status moved from Nationally Endangered in 2004 to Nationally Increasing in 2022.

“The expertise, commitment and collaboration of many people and organisations contributed to the recovery of this iconic giant wētā,” said Dr. Chris Green, Honorary Research Associate of Department of Conservation. Green is the lead author of the paper.

Green described the paper as “one of the most comprehensive case studies of invertebrate conservation breeding, translocation and species recovery ever undertaken in Aotearoa New Zealand”. The paper shares knowledge on husbandry, release methods and population persistence, Green said.

Why wētāpunga needed help

Early European settlers cleared land for farming and destroyed wētāpunga habitat. They also introduced rats, stoats and other pests, and every wētāpunga population died out except the one on Te Hauturu-o-Toi.

A DOC Threatened Wētā Recovery Plan in the 1990s recognised wētāpunga as one of New Zealand’s most threatened species. Surveys on Te Hauturu-o-Toi/Little Barrier Island found the remaining population was too small to move wētā directly to new sites. That led to a conservation breeding programme away from the wild.

How the programme grew

A small number of wētā were collected from Te Hauturu-o-Toi/Little Barrier Island to start a breeding colony at Butterfly Creek. That colony produced the first wētāpunga for release onto two Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana islands, Motuora and Tiritiri Matangi, in 2010 and 2011.

Auckland Zoo set up a second breeding colony in 2012. It refined the early techniques and reared large numbers of wētā in communal creches. From 2014 to 2025, the zoo bred and released 8,874 wētāpunga.

By 2025, more than 11,000 wētāpunga had been released onto eight predator-free islands in the Hauraki Gulf and Bay of Islands, and two mainland fenced sanctuaries. Monitoring on Motuora and Tiritiri Matangi shows at least four generations have been born there, which is recognised internationally as confirmation that the species has established.

Who made it work

Ngāti Manuhiri, kaitiaki of wētāpunga and mana whenua of Te Hauturu-o-Toi/Little Barrier Island, provided ongoing support and engagement. Wētāpunga are taonga species for Ngāti Manuhiri.

Community restoration groups across the upper North Island raised money for the intensive care the wētā needed. They also helped organise releases and ongoing monitoring.

“The future of wētāpunga is looking bright,” said Green. Other critically endangered invertebrates could benefit from similar programmes, Green added, such as the Canterbury knobbled weevil and several native stag beetle species.

The paper is titled Captive Breeding Programme Enables a Successful Wētāpunga (Deinacrida heteracantha: Orthoptera: Anostostomatidae) Recovery Programme.