Should the tuatara population inside a wildlife park be considered wild or captive?
I would personally consider that individuals born in there are wild, whereas at least 200 individuals placed in there by people are captive. Particularly in light of discussions here.
I can’t find info on how many tuatara there are in there nowadays, and therefore what proportion of tuatara from Zeelandia, which has a predator exclusion fence all around it, have hatched in-situ. There is some evidence of limited breeding at the sanctuary since 2009, but I can’t find mention of further breeding success, or news of how many tuatara inhabit the sanctuary today. I find it hard to imagine that the majority of animals in there have not been placed there deliberately by humans, given the glacial speed of tuatara reproduction and their extreme longevity.
Since ascertaining the status as captive or wild of each individual seems tricky, would it make sense to consider the captive or wild status to apply to the whole population?
Are the tuataras reproducing in the park? If so, the ones that were born, or hatched, wild in the park are wild. They’re going where they want to go (inside the fence). The area inside the fence is less than 1 square mile, but it’s still pretty big, for a tuatara.
I think there’s also the question of whether, because there is a predator-exclusion fence, wildlife relocation or release counts as captive. These are post-release, if we were considering them in terms of wildlife rehab. The same wildlife relocation into a preserve without a fence would be considered wild, even though it was into a sanctuary area. It is fenced, but the animals are not cared for any more than any other protected wildlife area might be, if I understand correctly, merely monitored. Ecological islands, as they are kept in NZ and Australia, are a little tough to define in some ways. If the area they were released was an island in the literal sense instead, such as when an island is cleared of introduced predators ahead of a reintroduction with ongoing predator-monitoring, would they be considered captive, since it is a sanctuary protected from predators?
If I misunderstand and the animals there are cared for, then this is obviously not applicable and they are definitely captive.
I think this is accurate. I don’t know how much care is provided, if any. I definitely consider that animals born in the enclosure are wild, just not sure what to make of the ones that were deliberately placed there by people.
I found a media release that refers to the population as “flourishing”. Although it’s written by the sanctuary, I have no reason to doubt it. It might mean that a decent proportion of the population were born there, rather than relocated.
It’s an interesting case. Tuatara appear to have very slow metabolisms and long lives (perhaps averaging about 60 years, with one male documented as reproducing at 111 years old). They also reproduce slowly: “females mate and lay eggs once every four years”.
Tuatara were released into the Zealandia sanctuary in 2005 and nests and hatchlings were documented within 3–4 years, so certainly some individuals seen now were born there. Also, as others have said, the population is apparently not cared for, except for the maintenance of the exclusion fence.
I would guess that many of the observations on iNaturalist are members of the founding population and some were individuals born in the sanctuary over the past 20 years. The two human actions that might justify a “captive” designation are the translocation of the founding population and the continued maintenance of the fence. Set against that, these are wild animals living wild lives in part of their original range. I feel that justifies treating them as wild for iNat’s purposes.
I just visited Zealandia. The whole refuge is predator fenced, and covers 225 hectares. Generally, I classify anything in there as wild. It’s mostly birds that can come and go as they wish. But even flightless birds and other land creatures aren’t cared for, and live in a very large area, with self sufficient populations.
However, the tuatara are a special case. Even though there are tuatara in the main body of the reserve, these are rarely seen. Most of the tuatara seen by people are actually in a small entirely fenced off area within the reserve. This smaller area has a special fence that has been secured against mice (unlike the larger predator proof fence that surrounds the entire reserve, which is only “mostly” mice proof). Due to the small size of this area, I’d lean towards describing those tuatara as captive, as they are more akin to animals in a zoo, with a large enclosure
I would love to visit. Do the tuatara in the smaller enclosure receive supplemental feeding or anything like that, do you know? I don’t know how I would classify them as that is such a unique situation. But it is also just very interesting to find out how they are managing to help these animals amid such challenges.
As a side note, in both videos I’ve been watching of Zealandia and observations on iNat, I noticed at least some of the tuatara are marked with colored beads. I wonder if at least some of them can be identified as original releases or subsequent hatchings that way.
My view: the difference between a captive and wild animal is if they have an owner. An owner is someone who has property rights and duties, e.g. can sell the animal, and would be liable to pay compensation if the animal caused damage.
An animal which is the explicit property of someone (not merely implicit property by living on private land) is captive, whether it’s behind a fence or not.
So for these tuataras, I’d consider them captive if the Zeelandia Wildlife Sanctuary owns them and might, for example, be prosecuted for animal abuse if they starved.
I think any natural offspring would be wild in this scenario given the size of the reserve and ability of the tuatara to largely select where they will be inside this.
For the smaller fenced area that @AdaShovelace described, captive seems reasonable.
But in this instance, I don’t think it matters too much. Given how well known the population is, anyone studying tuatara is going to be able to draw their own conclusions about how they want to treat the data.
This is a difficult call. The tuatara at Zeelandia are living “wild” within the confines of the large natural enclosure to which they have been relocated.
Native populations of Tuatara would have been found here historically.
Compare that to the wildlife that has been relocated to other reserves in New Zealand. For example, Tawharanui Regional Park has many species that have been relocated to its 558 hectares. Several species of native lizard have been translocated here successfully. Eventually the plan is to release tuatara into this large, fenced area. Are those lizards/tuatara considered captive if they roam freely in this 558 hectares? I think we would all agree they are.
Why is Zeelandia different because it is smaller? What’s the size standard where a “zoo” becomes a “wild reintroduction area”?
If the tuatara are completely free to move around within the confines of the sanctuary on their own, I think they should be counted wild, regardless of whether they were born in the wild or released from captivity.
I remember one guy who insisted that North American bison who were constrained in a fenced area in any way (even though the fenced area was very large) were captive and went around tagging them as such, and was unopposed on this. How would a fenced area for tuatara differ?
Wild to me means not a focus of management.
Being a botanist, if a garden plant grows wild in a garden by the source plant, it’s not wild, because the patch is being managed for that plant. If it grows under a hedge in the garden or in the crazy paving or outside in the street, it is wild, since it’s in an area not managed for it.
In your sort of case if the area is being managed for an animal in any major way (including excluding predators, healing individuals when they get sick, ensuring they have food in the winder etc) then it would to me be captive rather than wild. But if the management is minor and also if it stopped the situation would continue by itself then I’d consider them wild.
I’d oppose all bison being tagged as captive. I cannot say the same about these tuatara’s because I am unfamiliar with them and their scenario, but am inclined to say they are wild as well. Wild spaces are decreasing in size, to extremes in some instances, and management is sometimes necessary to keep these areas wild.