Wild Life: An Animal History of Aotearoa Philippa Werry
Wild Life:
An Animal History of Aotearoa 
Philippa Werry (2026)
Oratia
Non-fiction, 100 pages
ISBN 978 1 99 004298 0
Where would we be without Philippa Werry? For years she
has provided New Zealand children with story books, picture books and, above
all, history books.
Her latest offering, Wild Life: An Animal History of
Aotearoa, does exactly what its title says; it looks at how our country’s
birds, insects and animals got here. We also learn how they survived or didn’t
survive.
Werry knows how to appeal to young readers. Her account
begins with a 14-year-old schoolboy finding the fossil remains of trilobites,
some 505 million years old, near Motueka in 1948. When Zealandia separated from Gondwanaland it
carried a population of ancestral birds and insects, some of whose evolved
descendants are, remarkably, still with us. The word ‘remarkably’ is highly
appropriate because Philippa Werry’s account of what happened to our wildlife
in recent millennia shows a high casualty rate. Some creatures, including
theropod dinosaurs, burrowing bats, giant penguins and freshwater crocodilians
now exist only as fossils.
The arrival of humans has brought further changes to our
natural world, especially over the last few centuries. The Māori relationship
with Aotearoa’s birds, reptiles and sea creatures is deftly sketched in,
complete with the arrival of new mammals, kiore and kūri. Early contact by
Europeans seeking a southern continent, seal skins or whale oil, introduced the
deadly Norwegian rat, as well as (the slightly less deadly) cats, dogs, pigs
and goats. Settlers from Europe introduced familiar farm and domestic animals
for agriculture and transport bringing further challenges to native wildlife.
Anyone who has read a 19th Century newspaper
will also know of disastrous importations which further upset the balance of
nature. Sparrows and rabbits seem to have been introduced for nostalgic
reasons. Ferrets, stoats and weasels were supposed to end the rabbit problem
but snacked on native birds instead. The resulting mixture of ecological
tragedy and comedy is nicely captured in Werry’s text. In 1883, Walter Buller
spots a huia and records, ‘watching this beautiful bird and marking his
noble bearing … before I shot him.’
A great strength of this book is its coverage of various
native species, with engaging profiles. Who can forget Old Blue the Black
robin? Other popular animals including Opo, Bess, Shrek, Phar Lap, Happy Feet
and Pelorous Jack remind us of how involved New Zealanders are with animals.
A splendid feature of Werry’s account is the way she
includes young people in the conservation story. Barrytown school-children
alerted Robert Falla to an unknown species of Black petrel. Kahn Coleman was only twelve when he helped
save a colony of peripatus. Less successful was 15-month old Huia Onslow whose
mark appears beneath his father, Governor Onslow’s signature on an 1892 warrant
to protect huia.
Best of all, this book asks (and answers) lots of
questions. ‘Who names the Animals?’ produces a lively couple of pages,
including some Tolkien surprises.
Werry has been indefatigable in ferreting out [sorry]
vivid vignettes of some incredible efforts by scientists and conservationists
to ensure the survival of many species. An entomologist, Bev Holloway raised a
small colony of newly discovered batflies in her airing cupboard, feeding them
on mashed bananas and yeast! Aola Holloway studied cave wētā in the depths of
the Waitomo caves, using a stick to ward off water rats!
In Wild Life Philippa Werry has given us a
positive and readable book, full of lively examples of interesting creatures,
with a balanced account of valuable conservation work and the threats still
facing our wildlife. There are masses of relevant illustrations and an index.
P.S. Good news: the Canterbury Knobbled Weevil is not
extinct.
Trevor Agnew
This review originally appeared in the March 2026 issue
of Magpies magazine.
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