Credit: Tom Flynn-Plummer University of Otago researchers have added another piece to the puzzle about how best to translocate New Zealand lizards for conservation purposes - confine them. In a paper just published in the New Zealand Journal of Ecology, the Department of Zoology researchers outlined how they translocated 19 barking geckos to Mana Island, using the method of penned release - enclosing them in a 100m² pen for three months so they get used to the site and hopefully establish a breeding population. It was the first time such a method had been used with the species and the researchers found it worked well. The geckos' area use decreased over time, indicating territory establishment.