Youth Highlights
Events, campaigns, stories...what our Youth Leaders and Youth Hubs are up to!
Written by Forest & Bird Youth Leaders across Aotearoa New Zealand.
Bird of the Year 2025 - Battle of the Youth Hubs (September 2025)
BirdNZ Conference 2025 - Youth Leaders Reports (June 2025)
Creature Feature
Your monthly dose of Aotearoa New Zealand's wacky, whimsical, and wonderful native and endemic species. Written and curated by Jasmine Starr, Youth Editor in the Youth Communications Hub.
Wrybill. Credit Craig McKenzie
Wrybill - it sure is | September 2025
Bird of the Year special. Here's introducing you to an adorable manu who is sure to steal your hearts and make sure you join the #wryforce
Smooth Stick Bug. Credit Steve Kerr
Smooth stick bugs: what’s long, brown, and sticky? | July 2025
Delve into the camouflage craziness that is the smooth stick bug, extolling its creativity, applauding its feminist mindset, and gleaning incredulously about the strange foreign land that also shares this critter with Aotearoa New Zealand.
Hairy seaweed crab. Credit Nick Wilson
Hairy Seaweed Crabs: the next fashion trend? | June 2025
Rediscover decorator crabs in Aotearoa New Zealand and how seaweed should be the latest fashion trend. But no matter how pretty you look, camouflage is the goal, especially when there's a big, scary, cannibalistic predator looking for you...
Archey's frog. Credit Carey Knox
Archey’s Frogs: small, dark, handsome (and really, really old) | May 2025
Who's your daddy? New Zealand's frogs are the great, great, great granddaddies of every frog on the planet, but mining on conservation land puts these precious taonga at high risk of extinction
Glowworms - New Zealand's Rockstars. Credit Artofvisuals
Glowworms - New Zealand's rockstars | April 2025
Uncover the deep, fascinating secrets of these glow-in-the-dark marvels. It's time to set the record straight, that these beautiful glowing stars are actually badly named, mucus-covered finger-shaped gnats.
Male Giraffe weevil at Matuku Reserve. Credit Christina Painting.
Giraffe Weevils - a 'long' time coming | February 2025
When you look at a giraffe weevil, the only word that comes to mind is ‘long’. Let's rubberneck a curiously clumsy but instantly recognisable critter.