Contents

COVER PHOTO HEADLINE : The Kakapo Code [Genetic technology is allowing scientists into the kakapo genome. What secrets will it reveal?]
CONTENTS : Departments : EDITORIAL / VIEWFINDER [Million Dollar Mouse] / GEONEWS [Rock Wrens, new cameras, stoats] / CURRENCY [The bird on our $50 note] / GREAT WALKS [Heaphy track] / ARTEFACT [The murder house] / WEATHER [Shipwrecks] / PROFILE [John Boys] / LIFE [Cognitive biases] / VIEWPOINT [Predator-free New Zealand] / VIEWPOINT [Fake carbon credits] / BOOKS [How did we get into this mess? Eye in the sky] / HISTORY [Disaster in the White Island] / IN THE FIELD [Stephen Belcher] / ON REFLECTION [Lessons from kakapo.]
CONTENTS : Features :
DECODING KAKAPO [In a world first, the entire genome of every individual of the kakapo species will be sequenced, giving researchers the ‘code’ to all living birds [and a few long-dead ones, too.]
WITHOUT A TRACE [In the wilds of Kahurangi National Park, a tramper disappears two days before Christmas, sparking a huge search and rescue effort. Nearly four years on, Alistair Levy has still not been found.]
KAVA : ELIXIR OF THE PACIFIC [The tradition of kava has brought people together and consummated important social occasions in the Pacific for 3000 years. As an alternative to alcohol, the use of kava is growing in New Zealand.]
FIRST ASCENT [The Darran Mountains lie deep in the marrow of northern Fiordland - a chunky, perplexing range of diorites and sandstones, gneisses and granites. This is a land of extremes, with the country’s most remote summits, the greatest rainfall and the longest, hardest-to-climb alpine rock walls.]