Saving our native lizards

From a Mid Canterbury farm to delving into the world of lizards, Samantha Fitzgerald is on observe for an interesting profession. She talked to the Guardian after notching up a prime native scholarship.

Samantha Fitzgerald, a latest Advance Ashburton scholarship recipient, will spend this yr researching methods to assist lizard conservation in New Zealand.

The 22-year-old is a Mt Hutt School alumni in her remaining yr of a two-year Grasp of Science diploma at Lincoln College.

Her analysis and thesis will take a look at instruments to assist lizard conservation on farms and enhance lizard monitoring conservation settings.

“We have some very distinctive species of lizard in New Zealand. They’re fairly totally different. All however one native lizard species give start to dwell younger.”

Fitzgerald mentioned in contrast to the standard tropical species, New Zealand’s lizards had specialised to outlive in a colder local weather with some distinct alpine-type species.

There have been greater than 130 lizard species in New Zealand with scientists nonetheless discovering and describing new species, she mentioned.

“About 86% of New Zealand’s lizards are in danger and threatened.”

Rising up on a sheep, beef and cropping farm simply outdoors Methven, Fitzgerald was conscious of geckos and skinks however solely actually began to understand them throughout her undergraduate research at Lincoln.

She turned conscious of a niche within the instruments obtainable for lizard conservation.

There have been instruments for conservationists however nothing for farmers to watch lizard populations on farms, she mentioned.

Because of this, Fitzgerald has give you an “synthetic retreat” for lizards, constructed from two layers of fabric, a couple of centimetre aside

Fitzgerald selected cheap supplies generally used on farms and is testing designs created from bricks, plywood sheets and corrugated roofing sheets to see which choices work finest – factoring in thermal properties and pest resistance.

She’s going to check the lizard retreats on website on Cleardale Station above the Rakaia Gorge and on two farms on Banks Peninsula.

The retreats are a protected house for lizards to hang around and supply a snapshot of the lizards in an space and the well being of the inhabitants.

If quite a lot of lizards had quick tails, it might work as a predator indicator and translate into pest management to assist lizard populations.

Fitzgerald can also be within the early phases of creating a lizard digicam field for conservationists. She’s acquired a digicam field positioned at Orana Wildlife Park for testing.

A movement delicate or constantly recording digicam would scale back the time and labour of monitoring lizards, significantly in distant areas, she mentioned.

One among her extra formidable plans is to try to use the person again sample of geckos to determine and monitor people for extra in-depth analysis.

Fitzgerald spoke at a convention for the Society of Analysis on Amphibians and Reptiles in New Zealand in November final yr, the place she obtained optimistic suggestions on her analysis concepts.

Lizards play an important function in seed dispersal for native species and kind a part of an interconnected meals internet. Fitzgerald hopes her analysis will make a sensible distinction to lizard conservation.

When not engaged on her thesis, Fitzgerald works on a dairy farm in Leeston doing something from odd jobs to milking and driving a tractor. She enjoys swimming, working and enjoying hockey. She’s additionally into crotchet, knitting and cross sew.

As soon as her thesis is completed, Fitzgerald plans to have “a little bit of a niche yr” with time for journey and strolling the Te Araroa Path earlier than coming into the workforce. Lengthy-term, she hopes to run an ecological consultancy.

By Sharon Davis