Rebecca Fox

For nearly 40 years, John and Sue Aspinall have always been ready to lend a hand, a tractor or a phone to Otago Boys' High School pupils and staff experiencing the great outdoors in the Matukituki Valley, on the edge of Mount Aspiring National Park.

The Gray's beaked whale that washed up on a Kaka Point beach earlier this week was a lactating mother, and its calf is unlikely to survive without it.

Two dead beaked whales found washed up on the Catlins Coast recently brings to five the number of dead marine mammals found on the coast this year - an unusually high number, according to Department of Conservation ranger Cheryl Pullar.

A meeting in Dunedin between a member of the expert panel considering the future of neurosurgery in the South and those fighting to retain the service went "better than we hoped", Associate Prof Samuel Mann says.

It was unusual in duration but otherwise the rain event which caused flooding on the Taieri in May was unremarkable, consultant hydrologist Dave Stewart says.

Throwing a piece of paper or cardboard into a green bin could start the habit of a lifetime.

Visitors to Sandfly Bay on Otago Peninsula are still encroaching on the shy yellow-eyed penguin's habitat, leaving researchers to call for better signs at the popular beach.

Six rescue trips in one day covering the equivalent distance of a flight to Australia, is the Otago Rescue Helicopter Trust's busiest day in its 11-year history.

Dunedin Archives New Zealand and National Library staff should notice little change in their day-to-day work once merged with the Internal Affairs Department, the man who will oversee the integration says.

"Substantially" more water could be available for irrigation in the Tarras-Bendigo area than first thought, an Otago Regional Council study shows.