this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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I'm from the US, and usually all we hear about Australia and New Zealand is of the scary, deadly animals. I've been happy to see so many articles on Lemmy about all the work they are doing on endangered animals like this bird and the bandicoots.
I'm also surprised that so many of these programs seem to involve indigenous people. I don't know much about that part of the world, but I wish we would involve our native people in things like this. It feels we still keep ourselves cut off from each other. It makes all these feel good animal stories into feel good people stories.
New Zealand doesn't really have any deadly animals.
No scorpions, snakes (other than the very appearance of a sea-snake), crocs, large cats, bears, etc. Our most venomous spiders can generally only make most people a little bit unwell. We might occasionally see a potentially dangerous shark but they're so rare that I can't recall when a notable attack happened.
Our insects aren't generally disease spreaders - though we've come close a few times to some getting a foothold.
Colonists introduced many destructive species but nothing very personally dangerous. In theory there could still be moose, but it seems unlikely.
The only NZ native land-mammal is a tiny bat as far as I know.
There is the small problem with orcs, goblins, trolls and Australians... but it's okay, we have a wizard (retired?).
Thank you for all that! As I said, we don't seem to get taught much about that part of the world. LotR is probably the only NZ thing I can recall of the top of my head, which is pretty embarrassing.
In that case let's really blow your mind...
A Kiwi is a bird or a person, not a fruit.
... Also New Zealand is comprised of three major islands North Island, South Island and West Island... Also some of my facts may be slightly inaccurate - but not the bit about the fruit.
I had heard the kiwi stuff, but you had me second guessing myself!
I did look up the island names since I had never heard Aotearoa before, and a few of the blurbs say there are a few hundred actual islands that make up New Zealand, but it seems nobody can agree on an actual number because they all have a different estimate.
Actually New Zealand has quite a few islands and more than three that are inhabited, but the three that most people refer to are North Island, South Island and Stewart Island (even though there are larger populations on others). The fourth most likely inhabited island to be mentioned is Waiheke Island (and the third most populated).