Powering Adventure: Filming Conservation on the West Coast. (NZCS X Nitecore)
How do you film an outdoor series?
“Not on a tight budget.”
That’s what we were told.
Which was a problem, because that’s exactly what we had.
Our vision, however, was simple: to inspire everyday Kiwis that there is still mystery worth exploring in the great outdoors. We believe that every great adventure starts with mystery. One avenue of exploring that relationship is the area of emerging technology and how it can shape conservation in some of the most rugged and inaccessible locations on earth.
Across the summer of 2025/6 we wanted to showcase this is a content series that we could use to engage New Zealanders and draw them into the world of science and conservation.
So we chose a potentially extinct native species. We chose a location with a cluster of compelling recent sightings. And we chose to bring a videographer with us to document how thermal and night vision, ecoacoustic monitoring, drones, and DNA testing could transform how we approach the question of whether a species still exists.
The goal was never simply to find the species. It was to show that mystery still exists, and that engaging with it can be an entry point into loving the outdoors, and eventually into conservation itself.
Almost immediately, we ran into a much more practical problem.
How do you film a series like that when you’re operating deep in the bush, days from the nearest power outlet, in cold, wet conditions that would make any reasonable filmmaker think twice?
The location was the remote West Coast of New Zealand. A place where mosquitoes are relentless, gear often never truly dries, and summer temperatures can swing from humid to freezing within hours.
If this was going to work, we needed reliable battery power and lighting. So we reached out to the team at Nitecore and asked if they’d be willing to help.
They didn’t hesitate.
Within days, they’d sent over Carbo 10,000 Gen 2 power banks, FSP30 solar panels, HA23 UHE headlamps, MH25 Pro torches, and, once they heard we were headed to the West Coast, an EMR10 portable mosquito repeller as well.
It meant we could operate as a remote film crew for extended periods, despite being far from civilization. It allowed us to hike further into remote terrain while carrying less weight, particularly fewer spare batteries. It gave us the ability to search for nocturnal, potentially extinct species, and to do so without being eaten alive while standing still for long periods filming.
The mosquito repeller alone was a revelation. We’d never found a reliable way to deal with mosquitoes while filming, especially when stationary, and it’s something I’ll seriously consider bringing on future trips.
The solar panel proved transformative. It allowed us to capture footage of an ancient eel likely close to a century old. It powered acoustic recordings of kea recolonising an area, morepork calling through the night, and weka drumming just metres from our recording equipment. It enabled thermal recordings of weka moving through dense bush, and allowed us to fly drones over large areas that would have taken weeks to search on foot.
It didn’t stop there.
We were able to recharge ecoacoustic recording units in the field, extending their deployment by nearly a week. Given those units typically run for about a month, that translates to roughly a 20 percent increase in data collection, a significant gain in a project like this.
One of the standout moments came when we realised we’d captured weka drumming audio directly beside our acoustic gear. A sound many New Zealanders will never hear, now recorded and able to be shared with tens of thousands of people.
The lighting technology mattered just as much.
All reported sightings of our target species were nocturnal and confined to a small area. We wanted to see if it was possible to capture footage, if it did exist, without disturbing it. The red-light settings on our headlamps allowed us to move quietly through remote gullies at night, switching to white light only when we heard calls we felt warranted investigation.
One night, near the top of one of those gullies, we heard a call that sounded remarkably similar to the species we were looking for. We didn’t manage to capture it on film, and we can’t say with certainty what it was, but it was genuine. Did that just happen? moment. One that simply wouldn’t have occurred without the ability to move silently and unobtrusively through the bush.
It reinforced something important: if you want to find species, you first need to not disturb them.
We emerged from the region with feathers sent for DNA testing, over 100 gigabytes of sound recordings to analyse, 250 minutes of filmed footage, 30 minutes of drone footage, and 30 minutes of thermal recordings.
Without technology like that provided by Nitecore, we would have captured only a fraction of that data.
We’re excited to bring this series to life, and to share what we’ve found in the new year. But more than anything, we hope it shows that conservation doesn’t always start with answers.
Sometimes it starts with good questions and the tools to explore them in an engaging way.