Logo Narrative

The logo of the New Zealand Wildlife Health Centre captures the emphasis of the NZWHC work within New Zealand on endemic wildlife species while retaining the outward enquiring viewpoint mandated by the centre's basis at a major University, and its roles here and overseas in surveillance and consultancy protecting wildlife health and welfare.

The stylized wildlife forms are important as individual identifiable species, but also as representatives of higher taxonomic classes and of the habitats they exploit.

In the foreground looking South to the subantarctic islands and the antarctic, the Common Green Gecko, Naultinus elegans, is a small inhabitant of scrub and forestland with an arboreal habit. This species has been chosen to represent the reptiles and amphibians which have been important groups of mostly endemic species investigated by the diagnostic pathology service the NZWHC operates.

Looking West across the Tasman Sea is the Takahe, Porphyrio mantelli, a grassland species thought extinct until rediscovered. Although a rail and closely related to wetland birds, this species in New Zealand represents terrestrial birds which have come under severe pressures from habitat alienation and introduced mammalian predators. Several such species, including the Takahe, only survive as a result of intensive management programmes and the wildlife clinical service of the NZWHC, based in New Zealand's only Veterinary Teaching Hospital, has been critical in providing conservation managers with expert health management advice and in caring for individual sick and injured birds.

Looking East across the Pacific Ocean is the Yellow Eyed Penguin Megadyptes antipodes, one of the numerous penguin species which breed on New Zealand shores. This species has been chosen to represent the seabirds protected by the oiled wildlife response unit, an internationally recognised programme within the NZWHC which coordinates national contingencies for wildlife in oil spills for government.

Leaping North towards the tropics is the Hector's dolphin, Cephalorhynchus hectori, an endemic inshore porpoise studied under the wildlife research mission of the NZWHC to determine its spatial habitat needs to assist the development of conservation management legislation. A major element of NZWHC activity has been in studies of marine mammal life history including mortality surveillance of stranded and fisheries bycatch seals and dolphins, and special disease investigations, especially where application of the knowledge gained has an applied value to species and marine resource management.

The gradient cartouche signals the altitudinal range of habitats from earth and sea to sky, the circularity of trophic relationships, and represents the insularity of the New Zealand landmasses. As a nation of islands, New Zealand has remained protected from exotic disease threats to animal health. The NZWHC has key roles in surveillance and investigation of wildlife disease alongside the parent Institute of Veterinary Animal and Biomedical Science's missions in protecting companion and production animal health and welfare.

The logo was designed by Quentin Roper