Five Otago skinks from the Awa Nohoaka Conservation Area, near Wanaka, are being moved to the Peacock Springs Wildlife Park, near Christchurch, as part of a captive breeding programme.
The breeding programme is an initiative of the Department of Conservation (Doc).
Classified as a nationally critically endangered species, the five Otago skinks are the second batch of juveniles to be placed in a captive breeding scheme.
Last winter, several Otago skinks from the Macraes Flat Conservation Area, north of Dunedin, were placed with approved breeders in the North Island and the Wellington Zoo.
Doc captive breeding specialist Lesley Judd said the skinks were caught during a "rewarding" eight-day mission into the high country, near Wanaka.
Otago skinks are considered "giants" of their species. They are New Zealand's largest lizards and have very distinctive colouring and patterns.
The lizards were capable of growing up to 30cm long and could live for up to 20 years in the wild, Ms Judd said.
They were extremely vulnerable to a wide range of introduced predators, including ferrets, stoats, feral cats and rats.
Ms Judd said the five juveniles were from a small and isolated population.
"If they breed in captivity their offspring will add to the other measures being taken to protect the species from extinction in the wild."
The Awa Nohoaka population of skinks was the only known potentially viable one beyond the skink reserves in East Otago.
Placing Otago skinks from this area in captivity was undertaken to secure the genetics of this western population, she said.
Once common across the province, grand and Otago skinks were now restricted to less than 8% of their former range - at Macraes Flat, plus a few precarious populations around Middlemarch, Ms Judd said.
They were also recorded in small numbers in the Lindis and Hawea areas in the 1980s and 90s, with further sightings in the Lindis in 2002.
Doc's population monitoring indicates that at their current rate of decline - and in the absence of management - the species will be functionally extinct in the wild within the next decade.
