Staglands Wildlife Reserve is a wildlife park located in the
Akatarawa Valley
The Akatarawa Valley is a valley in the Tararua Range of New Zealand's North Island. It provides a link from the upper reaches of the Hutt Valley to Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast through rugged hill country. The valley is lowly populated and con ...
, 20 km north of
Upper Hutt
Upper Hutt ( mi, Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta) is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington#Wellington metropolitan area, Wellington metropolitan area.
Geography
The Upper Hutt city cent ...
in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. It was established in 1972 by English immigrant John Simister. Besides native birds, including rare waterfowl such as
whio and
pāteke, the park maintains a variety of farm animals, including rare breeds such as
kunekune
The Kunekune or is a small breed of domestic pig from New Zealand. Kunekune are hairy with a rotund build, and may bear wattles hanging from their lower jaws. Their colour ranges from black and white, to ginger, cream, gold-tip, black, brown, ...
. Along with Michael Willis from
Christchurch
Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...
's
, Simister has been credited with saving the kunekune from extinction.
[Matthew Tso]
The men who brought the kunekune pig back from the brink
stuff.co.nz, 13 October 2020
References
External links
Staglands web site
{{coord, -40.9874, 175.1233, format=dms, type:landmark_region:NZ, display=title
Upper Hutt
Zoos in New Zealand
Wildlife parks