Aucklanders called on to attract threatened geckos to their gardens

Friday, 19 January 2018

Native geckos are under threat in Auckland and residents are being urged to lend a hand.

Six out of seven of Auckland's gecko species, including the Auckland green gecko or kakariki, are classified as being at risk by the Department of Conservation, under threat from pests, urban development, and competition for food and habitats. 

But Aucklanders can play their part by creating gecko-friendly gardens, ecologists say.

Auckland Council ecologist Melinda Rixon and Bioresearches senior ecologist Dylan van Winkel said Aucklanders could help the green gecko and other native geckos by creating 'lizard refuges' in backyards and gardens.

​**READ MORE:

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* Endangered geckos move to new home**

​According to Forest & Bird's website a gecko-friendly garden includes thick ground cover, mulched gardens with good water retention, decent hiding places like rotting logs, slabs of bark and layered rocks and walls covered with vines and creepers to help them climb.

Cracked stone walls facing the sun were recommended too, as well as placing water bowls in the garden, the website said.

Anyone wishing to help geckos had to be wary about plague skinks, van Winkel said. 

To the untrained eye plague skinks looked like native skinks and nine out of 10 cases of lizard sightings in parks or gardens were plague skinks, van Winkel said. 

Skinks have small eyes that can blink and geckos have larger eyes that can't blink. 

Skinks thrived in the same environments as geckos however, they were pests, he said.

'It presents a tricky situation, we want to encourage the public to protect native species, but in many cases it's the introduced plague skinks that end up benefiting.'

On social media site Neighbourly.co.nz Mt Roskill resident Janice Austin said she had 'heaps' of little brown geckos in her garden.

'They love to sit on the hot concrete in my shed and under anything that heats up. I would love more in my garden,' Austin said. 

For a closer viewing of the green gecko head along to Auckland Zoo's The Islands area in its Te Wao Nui precinct.