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A plague skink stowed away on a flight to Invercargill before being captured and destroyed. (File photo)
A plague skink stowed away on a flight to Invercargill before being captured and destroyed, and multiple plague skinks made the move south in a house-load of gear from Auckland.
The mystery of how plague skinks came to be found at Wallacetown near Invercargill is slowly being solved, after Stuff reported two had been found during the last few months.
The incursions were being managed by the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries, since plague skinks are not established in Southland.
But on Thursday, a person who said they “work with skinks’’ contacted Stuff to say ‘’one came down on a plane and the other was in furniture’’.
“Someone found it on the seat next to them on the plane coming down,’’ the person said about the skink on the plane.
DOC senior biodiversity ranger Ros Cole confirmed one skink had been found on an aircraft, after the department was contacted again on Friday.
Cole said that skink was ‘’captured and destroyed,’’ by a DOC staff member who happened to be on the same flight. They could not provide details of when the flight was or where it had come from.
Marlborough District Council
Plague skinks are known to be present in the North Island and have been found in the upper South Island on occasion. (File photo)
Air New Zealand, which is the only airline to fly into Invercargill, did not want to comment about whether domestic aircraft were checked for unwanted organisms or whether it was rare to find a skink on a plane and referred Stuff to MPI and Customs.
The second incursion involved multiple skinks who had inadvertently travelled south with a house load of gear from Auckland, Cole said.
“The homeowner has been amazing and undertaken the surveillance and control with advice and support from Ministry for Primary Industries, Environment Southalnd and DOC,’’ she said.
“Skinks can hide in boxes, and lay eggs in places like pot plants and be shifted unknowingly, so it’s important to stay vigilant. It’s great that people are reporting incidents of new species and we’d encourage people to let the relevant agencies know if they see anything unusual.’’
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Plague skinks can lay eggs in places like pot plants, the Department of Conservation says. (File photo)
Plague skink sightings can be reported via the pest hub – www.pesthub.es.govt.nz.
“We’d encourage everyone to check their belongings are free of pests before moving between regions, especially if they are going to an offshore island’’.
Plague skinks are known to be present in the North Island and have been found in the upper South Island on occasion.
RYAN ANDERSON/STUFF
After taking care of 50 critically endangered Kapitia skinks for five years, and growing their population to about 70, Auckland Zoo released 42 of them back to their native habitat on the West Coast of the South Island. (video first published November, 2021)
They are declared an Unwanted Organism by the Ministry for Primary Industries.
They reproduce rapidly and can reach high population densities in a relatively short time, competing with native lizards and other native fauna for food and habitat, and increasing predation pressure on native invertebrates.
