Stephens Island () is at the northernmost tip of the

Marlborough Sounds The Marlborough Sounds (Māori language, te reo Māori: ''Te Tauihu-o-te-Waka'') are an extensive network of ria, sea-drowned valleys at the northern end of the South Island of New Zealand. The Marlborough Sounds were created by a combination ...

in the

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. It lies two kilometres to the northeast of Cape Stephens, the northernmost point of D'Urville Island. The island is in size, and rises high from the sea. Stephens Island

History

The island was owned by the Ngāti Koata iwi but was taken by the government to build a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

in 1891. The

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

called it Takapourewa ("around the tower") but explorer

Captain Cook Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 1768 and 1779. He complet ...

renamed it Stephens Island in 1770 after Sir Philip Stephens, Secretary of the Admiralty. The island featured in local mythos as the place where a local

lighthouse keeper A lighthouse keeper or lightkeeper is a person responsible for tending and caring for a lighthouse, particularly the light and lens in the days when oil lamps and clockwork mechanisms were used. Lighthouse keepers were sometimes referred to as ...

's cat, named Tibbles, was claimed to have caused the extinction of

Lyall's wren Lyall's wren or the Stephens Island wren (''Traversia lyalli'') was a small, flightless passerine belonging to the family Acanthisittidae, the New Zealand wrens. Now extinct, it was once found throughout New Zealand, but when it came to the a ...

in 1894. However, this belief was an erroneous urban legend.Medway, D.G. (2004) The land bird fauna of Stephens Island, New Zealand in the early 1890s, and the cause of its demise. ''Notornis'', 51:201–211. While this cat did kill one of the last birds seen, a few more specimens were obtained in the following years, by which time the island also hosted numerous feral cats, and the island was only the last refuge of the bird, which had become extinct on the mainland many centuries earlier due to

Polynesian rat The Polynesian rat, Pacific rat or little rat (''Rattus exulans''), or , is the third most widespread species of rat in the world behind the brown rat and black rat. Contrary to its vernacular name, the Polynesian rat originated in Southeast Asi ...

predation. Farming and grazing reduced the island's original vegetation cover by around 90%, before it was made a wildlife sanctuary in 1966 and a nature reserve in 1997. In 2012 the Treaty of Waitangi settlement between Ngāti Koata and the New Zealand Government required joint management by Ngāti Koata and the Department of Conservation.

Conservation

Today, the best known resident of Stephens Island is the

tuatara The tuatara (''Sphenodon punctatus'') is a species of reptile endemic to New Zealand. Despite its close resemblance to lizards, it is actually the only extant member of a distinct lineage, the previously highly diverse order Rhynchocephal ...

. The island is a

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred space, sacred place, such as a shrine, protected by ecclesiastical immunity. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This seconda ...

for this rare

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

of reptile which is now extinct on the mainland, except in tightly controlled reserves including

ecological island An ecological island is a term used in New Zealand, and increasingly in Australia, to refer to an area of land (not necessarily an actual island) isolated by natural or artificial means from the surrounding land, where a natural micro-habitat exists ...

s. Stephens Island is internationally important for nature conservation. While most attention has focused on the tuatara, significant and unique factors include: * Endemic species – those found nowhere else, either because they evolved here or because they have become extinct everywhere else – such as Hamilton's Frog, perhaps the rarest frog in the world, and the Ngaio weevil, a large flightless Weevil * Unusual species such as the tuatara (''Sphenodon punctatus''), which is the sole survivor of a group of reptiles that otherwise appears to have been extinct elsewhere in the world for more than 60 million years * Rare species – such as the Stephen's Island gecko and

Cook Strait click beetle ''Amychus granulatus'', commonly known as the Cook Strait click beetle, is a large flightless click beetle in the family Elateridae. Description Adult '' A. granulatus'' can be distinguished from other ''Amychus'' species by its wide and sp ...

that are only found in a handful of other places, and for which Stephens Island is a stronghold * Common species in unusual abundance – such as the more than one million seabirds, vast numbers of

wētā Wētā (also spelled weta in English) is the common name for a group of about 100 insect species in the families Anostostomatidae and Rhaphidophoridae endemism, endemic to New Zealand. They are giant wingless insect, flightless cricket (insect ...

and

darkling beetle Darkling beetle is the common name for members of the beetle family Tenebrionidae, comprising over 20,000 species in a cosmopolitan distribution. Taxonomy ''Tenebrio'' is the Latin generic name that Carl Linnaeus assigned to some flour beetles ...

s and many more * Stephens Island is a part of a complex ecosystem that includes a vast area of ocean. An enormous number of

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine ecosystem, marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ...

s link this small (154 ha) island to a vast marine

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...

. The sea provides nutrients, the seabirds carry these to the island and Takapourewa provides a sanctuary for nesting birds, free of mammalian land predators.

Geography

In natural character, Stephens Island is a rugged landmass dominated by maritime influences. Visually the island is connected to the adjacent larger D'Urville Island, and Stephens Island is the largest of the family of islands, islets and rock stacks that characterise this southwestern side of the

Cook Strait Cook Strait () is a strait that separates the North Island, North and South Islands of New Zealand. The strait connects the Tasman Sea on the northwest with the South Pacific Ocean on the southeast. It is wide at its narrowest point,McLintock, ...

. Although uninhabited, the island has been extensively modified by land clearance and farming, but retains much of its wild natural character. From sea level the

is a prominent visual feature, while from the air the cluster of buildings and farmed landscape are obvious. The surrounding sea is rich with marine life, albeit strongly modified and depleted by fishing, and historically by hunting of whales and seals. The island overlooks one of the great whale migration routes, most notably for

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the monotypic taxon, only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh u ...

s. Marine mammals such as

New Zealand fur seal ''Arctocephalus forsteri'' (common names include the Australasian fur seal, South Australian fur seal, New Zealand fur seal, Antipodean fur seal, or long-nosed fur seal) is a species of fur seal found mainly around southern Australia and New Z ...

s and various dolphin species are seen around the island. This is an area of strong winds (mean annual wind speed ), strong currents and broken restless seas. The island also harbours strong gradations of weather between the often cloud-covered summit and the wave-lashed shores. There are also distinct differences between the relatively more exposed western and the less exposed eastern shores. Rainfall averages a modest .

Geology

Stephens Island is characterised by the Stephens Formation, a geological unit comprising 1100 meters of southeast-dipping sedimentary rocks ranging from mudstone with limestone lenses to volcanogenic sandstone and conglomerate. As the youngest formation within the Maitai Group, these rocks constitute the most northerly exposure of the Nelson Regional Syncline, displaying an overturned orientation on the syncline's eastern limb. Indurated with widespread metamorphic prehnite, pumpellyite, and lawsonite, the formation is subdivided into Queens Beach, Incline, Takapourewa, and Titapua Members, with no discernible top or bottom boundaries. Notably, the oldest rocks, found in the Queens Beach Member, consist of a 150-meter layer of rounded cobble conglomerate enclosing angular blocks of coarse volcanogenic sandstone. Within one such block, measuring 4 meters in length and up to 1.5 meters in thickness, a diverse but moderately preserved marine fossil assemblage dominated by brachiopods and pectinid bivalves of Late Permian age is identified. The contemporaneous formation of the fossiliferous sandstone and conglomerate suggests a Late Permian age, although the potential for a younger (Triassic) age cannot be ruled out. Additionally, Late Quaternary deposits, including loess and windblown sand, are present in localized areas.H. J. Campbell , A. C. Coleman , M. R. Johnston & C. A. Landis (1984) Geology of Stephens Island and the age of Stephens formation, New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 27:3, 277–289, DOI: 10.1080/00288306.1984.10422297

History

Conservation

Geography

Geology

Climate

See also

References

Further reading