Stewart Island in the context of "List of extinct animals of New Zealand"

New Zealand (Māori: Aotearoa) is an island country located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, near the centre of the water hemisphere. It consists of a large number of islands, estimated around 700, mainly remnants of a larger landmass now beneath the sea. The land masses by size are the South Island (Te Waipounamu) and the North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui), separated by the Cook Strait. The third-largest is Stewart Island (Rakiura), located 30 kilometres (19 miles) off the tip of the South Island across Foveaux Strait. Other islands are significantly smaller in area. The three largest islands stretch 1,600 kilometres (990 miles) across latitudes 35° to 47° south. New Zealand is the sixth-largest island country in the world, with a land size of 268,680 km (103,740 sq mi).

New Zealand's landscapes range from the fiord-like sounds of the southwest to the sandy beaches of the subtropical Far North. The South Island is dominated by the Southern Alps while a volcanic plateau covers much of the central North Island. Temperatures commonly fall below 0 °C (32 °F) and rise above 30 °C (86 °F) then conditions vary from wet and cold on the South Island's west coast to dry and continental a short distance away across the mountains and to the tundra like climate in the Deep South of Southland.

Foveaux Strait (/foʊvoʊ/ FOH-voh; Māori: Te Ara-a-Kiwa, lit. 'the Path of Kiwa') is a strait that separates Stewart Island from the South Island of New Zealand. The width of the strait ranges from about 23 to 53 km (14 to 33 mi), and the depth varies between 18 and 46 m (59 and 151 ft). The earliest known chart of the strait was prepared by American sealer, Owen Folger Smith from a whaleboat of the sealing brig Union in 1804.

The passage was named Foveaux Strait in March 1809, after Joseph Foveaux, the Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales in Australia. Ferry services across Foveaux Strait began in 1877 and continue to operate regularly between Bluff Harbour and Oban. The strait has been described as "one of the roughest and most unpredictable stretches of water in the world". Severe weather and sea conditions in the strait have contributed to multiple shipwrecks and fatalities. One of these losses was the wreck of the SS Tararua in 1881—the worst maritime disaster for civilian vessels in New Zealand's history, with 131 fatalities. There are currently no formal definitions of the eastern and western boundaries of the strait.

Southland (Māori: Murihiku, lit. 'the last joint of the tail') is New Zealand's southernmost region. It consists of the southwestern portion of the South Island and includes Stewart Island. Southland is bordered by the culturally similar Otago Region to the north and east, and the West Coast Region in the extreme northwest. The region covers over 3.1 million hectares and spans 3,613 km of coastline. As of June 2023, Southland has a population of 103,900, making it the eleventh-most-populous New Zealand region, and the second-most sparsely populated. Approximately half of the region's population lives in Invercargill, Southland's only city.

The earliest inhabitants of Southland were Māori of the Waitaha iwi, followed later by Kāti Māmoe and Kāi Tahu. Early European arrivals were sealers and whalers, and by the 1830s, Kāi Tahu had built a thriving industry supplying whaling vessels, looked after whalers and settlers in need, and had begun to integrate with the settlers. By the second half of the 19th century these industries had declined, and immigrants, predominantly Scottish settlers, had moved further inland. The region maintains a strong cultural identity, including its own distinct dialect of English and strong influences from its Māori and Scottish heritage.

The demographics of New Zealand encompass the gender, ethnic, religious, geographic, and economic backgrounds of the 5.3 million people living in New Zealand. New Zealanders predominantly live in urban areas on the North Island. The five largest cities are Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, and Tauranga. Few New Zealanders live on New Zealand's smaller islands. Waiheke Island (near Auckland) is easily the most populated smaller island with 9,360 residents, while Great Barrier Island, the Chatham and Pitt Islands, and Stewart Island each have populations below 1,000. New Zealand is part of a realm and most people born in the realm's external territories of Tokelau, the Ross Dependency, the Cook Islands and Niue are entitled to New Zealand passports.

As of the 2018 census, the majority of New Zealand's population is of European descent (70 percent; often referred to as Pākehā), with the indigenous Māori being the largest minority (16.5 percent), followed by Asians (15.3 percent), and non-Māori Pacific Islanders known collectively as Pasifika (9.0 percent). This is reflected in immigration, with most new migrants coming from Britain and Ireland, although the numbers from Asia in particular are increasing. Auckland is the most ethnically diverse region in New Zealand with 53.5 percent identifying as Europeans, 28.2 percent as Asian, 11.5 percent as Māori, 15.5 percent as Pasifika, and 2.3 percent as Middle Eastern, Latin American or African (MELAA). New Zealand is considered by some to be unique among Western countries for its high levels of ethnic intermarriage, which has historically been viewed with tolerance. According to a 2006 study, Māori have on average roughly 43% European ancestry, although the notion of being "mixed-race" is uncommon.

The New Zealand sea lion (Phocarctos hookeri), once known as Hooker's sea lion, and as pakake (for both male and female) or whakahao (male) and kake (female) in Māori, is a species of sea lion that is endemic to New Zealand and primarily breeds on New Zealand's subantarctic Auckland and Campbell islands, and have in recent years been slowly breeding and recolonising around the coast of New Zealand's South and Stewart islands. The New Zealand sea lion numbers around 12,000 and is one of the world's rarest sea lion species. They are the only species of the genus Phocarctos.

Bluff (Māori: Motupōhue), previously known as Campbelltown, is a town and seaport in the Southland region, on the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand serving as the main port of Invercargill. It is the southernmost town in mainland New Zealand and, despite Slope Point and Stewart Island being further south, Bluff is colloquially used to refer to the southern extremity of the country (particularly in the phrase "from Cape Reinga to The Bluff"). According to the 2018 census, the resident population was 1,797, a decrease of 6 since 2013.

The Bluff area was one of the earliest areas of New Zealand where a European presence became established. The first ship's crew known to have visited the harbour were from Perseverance which had anchored at Stewart Island in 1813. They were in search of flax trading possibilities, with the first European settlers arriving about 1836 when a whaling station was established by William Stirling.

Oban is the principal settlement on Stewart Island, the southern most inhabited island of the New Zealand archipelago. Oban is centred on Halfmoon Bay (sometimes used as an alternative name for the town), and stretches over a peninsula to Paterson Inlet. It has aircraft connections with Invercargill and a ferry service to Bluff, both on the mainland South Island.

The settlement was named after Oban in Scotland (An t-Òban in Scottish Gaelic, meaning The Little Bay), due to the strong influence Scottish settlers had in the south of early colonial New Zealand.