Limited number of tickets available – book yours now.

We will close the evening with some hot drinks and snacks around a campfire. Bring some warm clothes and a torch – carpooling is greatly appreciated!

(PS We can’t give refunds – however if the weather gods are unkind, we will either propose a new date, or supply you with a voucher for one of our other Matuku Link Nights).

Celebrate World Wetlands Day with us at Matuku Link!
📅Saturday, 13th February 2027 | 10am – 3pm

Get ready for a day of discovery, excitement, and free family fun at the World Wetlands Day Festival 2027 at Matuku Link, 111 Bethells Road, Te Henga!

With free family activities every hour including guided tours on bugs, birds, eels, and plants, and local conservation groups to chat to, you will have plenty to do all day. While you are here, look for our local pāteke (brown teal), spot a secretive spotless crake (pūweto), and keep an eye out for our cryptic namesake, the matuku-hūrepo (Australasian bittern). See how much Matuku Link has changed since its beginnings in 2016, with over eight thousand volunteer hours spent annually improving the place, building accessible boardwalks, and a Wetland Education Centre. Enjoy homemade treats, BBQ (vegan and non-vegan), drinks including fresh coffee, all available for purchase.

Stallholders in 2027 include Auckland Zoo, Birds New Zealand, Forest & Bird Waitākere, Arataki Visitor Centre, The Entomological Society, Mountains to Sea, Kauri Rescue, Auckland Council Biodiversity, Pest Free Waitākere Ranges Alliance (PFWRA), Muriwai Environment Trust and many others.

There will be an all-day market with gifts, food, art, information, and entertainment.  We would love you to join us on this special day. All talks are free and everyone is welcome.  

See you there for a fun filled day for the whole whanau!

Annalily & trustees Chad Wilkie, Dale Bainbridge, John Fawcett, John Staniland and John Sumich and all our volunteers.

Images by our amazing volunteer photographer Stefan Marks

My name is Teun and I am the brand-spanking new member of the Matuku Link volunteer team! Along with our newest intern, Maud, I moved to New Zealand for half a year. And since Maud is going to be spending a lot of time here, I decided to join her. Now a bit about myself:

I am Dutch, I am very tall and I love the outdoors and being creative. I’ve never been this far away from home and never for so long, but the Kiwi-hospitality makes me feel like I’ve already lived here for a year!

If we haven’t met yet, I’m looking forward to doing so and if we have: nice to meet you 🙂

See you soon!!!

Teun 

Ps: If you’re having a hard time pronouncing Teun, I also listen to Tone or Tony 😉

Hi! I am Maud, 22 years old and just started my internship here at Matuku Link.

I am from the Netherlands, so it took some time to come here, but so far totally worth it! I am studying Tropical Forestry in the Netherlands and have learnt a lot of stuff about forest and nature management, de- and reforestation, wildlife management and working together with local communities (in tropical areas). During this internship I can put my knowledge about wildlife management to use and we actually live in a (subtropical) rainforest. In other words, the perfect place for my first internship!

During these 6 months I will support Annalily with all kind of different tasks and I am working on a lizard monitoring/research together with John Sumich.
I am here together with my boyfriend Teun and after my internship we are planning to travel for a couple of months to see the other parts of NZ. Tips are always welcome!
So far, it’s been lovely to meet you all and we (also speaking for Teun) feel very welcomed by all the kindness and hospitality that’s everyone is showing.

Always open to chat!  Contact Maud here 🙂

Natashja Haddow Brown from Massey University is researching a nasty disease: leptospirosis. Matuku Link helped with supplying Natashja and her team with freshly caught pests to discover if these carry the disease in Te Henga. 

Can we find Leptospira in Te Henga?

Leptospira is a type of bacterium, a tiny microorganism that is invisible to the naked eye.
Leptospira can live in the kidneys of infected animals. When these animals urinate (wee), the bacteria can travel to the environment. After heavy rain or flooding, Leptospira can spread further through wet soil and water to puddles, streams, rivers and lakes (Figure 1).

If we have a cut or scratch that comes into contact with urine, water or soil containing Leptospira, the bacteria can sometimes enter our body and cause a disease called leptospirosis. Our pets and other animals can get leptospirosis too.
People with leptospirosis may have muscle aches, fever, headaches, or feel like they have the flu. Sometimes people can become very sick and need to visit a doctor or even go to hospital.

But, what about Te Henga… Can we find Leptospira there? And where might it be hiding?

To answer these questions, a research team from Massey University is using science and detective skills to search for this tiny bacterium. We are looking for Leptospira in rats, mice, wild pigs, rabbits, dogs, horses and cattle, as well as in water and soil around Lake Wainamu, Waitī Stream and the Waitākere River (Figure 2). We are also talking with people in the community and using questionnaires to learn about how people, animals and the environment might be connected.

This is a big job, and we could not do it without the help of people from Te Henga and local groups such as Matuku Link. Together, we have collected rats and mice to investigate whether these animals are carrying Leptospira.

How was Matuku Link involved?

To know if pests carry Leptospira, we needed freshly caught rats, stoats, weasels and possums – Matuku Link’s trappers caught these for us and kept them in the freezers at Matuku Link. They installed a whole new line of rat traps in an area withhout previous trapping – a win-win when 15 rats were caught in the first two weeks!

Why is this investigation important?

If we know where Leptospira is hiding, we can learn more about how people and animals might get the disease. This can help us understand how to reduce the risk of leptospirosis and keep people and our animals safe.

Vicky joined the Matuku Link team in 2026 as an Environmental Educator. She grew up in the Waitākere Ranges and has a love for the outdoors and a commitment to environmental protection. Vicky views the wetlands as the critical, living link between the land and the sea. Vicky has had 30 years of teaching in a wide range of schools from Years 1 to 8 and being part of the Matuku Link team allows her to merge her teaching with her passion for nature.

Vicky’s path to Matuku Link came through her participation in the Science Teaching Leadership Programme (STLP). The programme provided her with the opportunity to step outside the classroom and work directly alongside scientists on conservation efforts. This experience led her to Matuku Link, where she connected with this wetland environment and the team. Vicky is focused on combining scientific inquiry with hands-on learning, helping students explore local biodiversity and understand why protecting these ecosystems matters.

Contact Vicky at schools@matukulink.org.nz for anything education related!

Josh Campbell is a master’s student in Biological Science at the University of Auckland. His research focuses on lepidoptera (the moths and butterflies) and the behaviour associated with their camouflage. 

Kia ora everyone! My name is Dan Borja, and I am a master’s student from the University of Auckland studying entomology. Over the last couple of months, I have been conducting experiments at Matuku Link with the permission of the lovely staff who have given me a very warm welcome to the reserve.

My research stems from psychological studies which demonstrate the importance of symmetry as a tool for quick visual object recognition and identification. In other words, symmetrical objects or patterns tend to be recognised faster than asymmetrical objects. My research aimed to provide evidence for this in animals by looking at how wing patterns of moths are observed by birds. I conducted two experiments at Matuku: one which looks at how wing folding behaviour in moths may disrupt the symmetrical patterns of their wings, and the second experiment which observes how the orientation of a moth at rest may influence the perception of its symmetry. I hypothesised that moths which don’t fold their wings are more predated by birds. This is because the symmetry in moth wing patterns makes them more obvious to predators, especially in the forest as their backgrounds tend to be asymmetrical (making symmetrical patterns stand out!). I also hypothesised that moths which rest vertically are more predated because their symmetry is more obvious compared to moths which rest horizontally or diagonally. To test these hypotheses, I carefully crafted fake moth models out of paper and dough which were edible and harmless to birds and placed them on different trees at Matuku. Over a couple of months, I monitored the survival of these models under bird predation, taking note of which models were eaten sooner than others. I also conducted general bird surveys through 5-minute bird counts to gauge the diversity and frequency of birds at Matuku.

From my results, It seems that one of two scenarios are likely: one is that moths which have extremely folded wings are actually more predated (not what I was predicting!). It could also be that my moths are being affected by stabilising selection pressures. This means that bird predation is higher in moths with perfectly symmetrical and (at the same time) extremely asymmetrical wing patterns. However, this is just a theory, and I will be doing more research to justify my reasoning.