Marlborough Forest & Bird volunteers completed a round of plague skink control in November 2024, to help protect native skinks and geckos. This work has been ongoing since 2019. We continue to find plague skinks, as they are not being controlled in the rest of the Riverlands/Cloudy Bay industrial area, but we aim to stop them spreading towards the Wairau lagoons.
There is a risk of plague skinks displacing native lizards. They tend to form large populations, encouraging disease and predators that could seriously impact native skinks and geckos. New Zealand species – with one exception – give birth to live young but plague skinks lay multiple eggs.
Also known as rainbow skinks, the Australian natives are 3-4cm long, from nose to back legs. Brown or grey/brown with a metallic sheen in bright light, they favour moist sites in industrial areas, garden centres, gardens and wasteland. Populations are well established in greater Auckland, the Coromandel Peninsular, Tauranga and Te Puke and also found in the Waikato and Northland, as well as Marlborough.
In February 2025 herpetologist Carey Knox will be leading a lizard survey in the Wairau Lagoons area, and members of the team aim to learn more about native skinks and geckos and the survey techniques.
What can you do
Suspected plague skink finds outside known areas can be reported to the Ministry for Primary Industries Pest & Disease Hotline (0800 80 99 66) on online HERE.
New volunteers to help with the project are welcomed, please contact the branch. mailto:marlborough.branch@forestandbird.org.nz
