Listen
Ectotherm keeper at Auckland Zoo, Ben Goodwin looks after reptiles, crabs, fish and lots of native insects. Insects are his stand-out favourite. Ben and his Ectotherm colleagues have bred and introduced more than four thousand threatened giant wētāpunga to islands in the Hauraki Gulf. He tells Kathryn Ryan the best part of his job is restoring threatened species to where they would have lived in the past, that thousands of insects go extinct before they've even been named and why they are so important to the ecosystem. Conservation Week starts on Friday.