For decades, the Lord Howe Island stick insect seemed to have vanished from the world. The large, flightless insect had once lived on Lord Howe Island, a small island in the Tasman Sea. Then, after rats arrived, it disappeared from view and was widely considered extinct.
Its survival depended on a place that is difficult to reach and harder to live on: Ball’s Pyramid, a steep volcanic sea stack rising from the ocean southeast of Lord Howe Island. The story that followed is not a simple return-from-extinction tale. It is a careful effort to bring a species back to its former home—and to find out whether that home can support it again.
A survivor on a sea stack
The species, Dryococelus australis, is native to Lord Howe Island. The arrival of black rats in the early 20th century is associated with its disappearance there. Rats reached the island after the ship Makambo ran aground in 1918. In the years that followed, the stick insect was no longer found on Lord Howe Island.
In 2001, climbers found stick insects on Ball’s Pyramid, roughly 23 kilometres southeast of the island. The discovery was startling: a species thought lost had persisted on a rugged outcrop separated from its original habitat by open water. The known wild population was small and confined to a limited area, making it especially vulnerable to chance events.
Ball’s Pyramid offered refuge from the rats, but it was no substitute for a secure, broad habitat. That left conservationists with two linked tasks: establish a reliable population in human care, and address the threat that had helped eliminate the insect from Lord Howe Island.
Building a population in human care
Melbourne Zoo took part in efforts to collect a small number of insects and develop a breeding program. Raising them was challenging. The insects have particular needs for food and habitat, and breeding a species from a tiny founding group requires careful management to keep the population healthy.
Over time, the captive-breeding work produced insects and eggs that could support further conservation planning. That achievement did not mean the species was safe: a population in zoos is different from one living independently in the wild. But it gave conservationists a chance to learn more about the insect and to consider a return without relying on the vulnerable population on Ball’s Pyramid alone.
Removing the threat on Lord Howe Island
A return also depended on changing conditions on Lord Howe Island. In 2019, a major rodent-eradication program was completed there. The project aimed to remove introduced rats and mice, which pose risks to native wildlife and ecosystems. Getting rid of rodents was a crucial step toward making a reintroduction conceivable, though it could not, on its own, guarantee that the stick insect would thrive.
Conservationists still needed to determine whether the right habitat was available, whether the insects could cope with local conditions, and how a reintroduced group might be monitored. A release into a new setting is not just a handover: it is a test of whether the conditions that allowed the species to survive in captivity can translate into life outdoors.
A cautious first step toward home
In 2022, conservation teams began a reintroduction trial on Lord Howe Island. Rather than treating the first release as proof of success, they used it as a way to assess how the insects fared in a protected setting. The aim was to learn from the trial and make informed decisions about any future steps.
That caution matters. A species can be bred successfully under human care and still face difficulties in the wild—from unsuitable habitat to predators, weather or the challenges of finding food and mates. Monitoring helps reveal whether the insects survive and behave as hoped, and whether changes are needed before a larger release is considered.
The project also illustrates why conservation often depends on several kinds of work at once. Captive breeding can provide animals for recovery efforts; removing invasive predators can reduce a major source of risk; and field trials can show what remains uncertain. None of these steps alone amounts to a full recovery.
What “back” would really mean
The stick insect’s return to Lord Howe Island is best understood as a beginning, not a finish. A lasting recovery would mean more than seeing released insects survive for a short time. It would require a population able to persist and reproduce in suitable habitat, with continued monitoring to detect problems.
There is reason for measured optimism. The species was found alive after it had been presumed extinct, a breeding program has made conservation planning possible, and the removal of rodents has changed the conditions on its former home. But the insect remains a reminder that even an extraordinary rediscovery does not erase the pressures that made a species vulnerable.
For now, the journey from Ball’s Pyramid to Lord Howe Island is a careful experiment in restoration. Its success will be judged not by the drama of a release, but by what happens afterward: whether this unusual insect can once again make a life on the island where it was lost.
