A wrap of the biggest stories and best writing about the outdoors from New Zealand and around the world.
Cinamen, the cat, makes sure guests don’t get lost on the trail and will even warn hikers when they’re straying from the path. According to Cinamen’s owner, Trisha Mulligan, this is just what he does.
“I call him the concierge because he just loves people,” Mulligan said. “You know, each colour, they have different personalities. And there’s something about an orange cat that’s very social, and we have a very social cat.”
Of course, Cinamen is a cat, and in typical cat fashion, he cannot be coerced into anything. Mulligan said that he comes by his guiding behaviour naturally—no training involved—but there’s no guarantee that he’s going to join anyone on a hike. Or that he’s going to refrain from judging you if you go too slow.
If you want more of cats in the wild the BBC recently covered the escapades of cats on leads, photos of which are racking up millions of online views. To learn more about the phenomenon they spoke with three owners of so-called “adventure cats”, who have roamed the British countryside with their feline companions, about why they chose to take their pets on outdoor adventures.
And as the thru-hiking season gears up in the northern hemisphere, the Appalachian Trail also makes the news for a norovirus outbreak reported along the trail in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. Yuck.
Back in New Zealand, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s (NIWA) glacier survey paints stark picture as ice and snow disappear. NIWA has been flying over the country’s mountain ranges to conduct an end-of-summer snowline survey since the 1970s. This year’s flights paint a stark picture of ice and snow loss.
Programme lead Dr Andrew Lorrey said the glaciers appeared smashed and shattered due to enduring ice loss. “Even if we got a few cooler seasons, they wouldn’t be enough to undo the damage that’s already been done,” he said. The surveyors found one glacier was two-thirds the size it was when they last visited in 2018. Seven of the 10 warmest years recorded in New Zealand have been in the past decade – 2023 was the second-warmest on record.
Were you out hiking over the Easter weekend? Space enthusiasts are asking for security footage or eyewitness accounts of what could have been a meteor to narrow down where it may have landed. Reports from the top of the South Island to Auckland on Easter Friday night described a bright light shooting across the sky or a loud boom. One person said their house shook.
Jesse Stayte from the group Fireballs Aotearoa said, “The boom is quite diagnostic of it not being an aeroplane. We’re looking for reports in the Whanganui-Waverley vicinity, that’s where the boom’s been reported.”
Dashcam or security footage could show something landing on Earth, so Fireballs Aotearoa are asking people to check their own security cameras and dashcams in case they contain clues.
“People don’t often point their security cameras directly at the sky, which is understandable, but sometimes there’s a little bit that can be seen in the corner and in a situation like that, it could be all the data we need”.
