Mount Cook National Park

The 707km² Mount Cook National Park (Maori: Aoraki) is located on the South Island of New Zealand. It was established in 1953 and includes an Alpine high mountain, adjacent to the Westland National Park.

Together with the West Country, the Fiordland and Mount Aspiring National Park, the Mount Cook National Park is part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Area.

The National Park is named after Mount Cook, with a height of 3,754m, it is the highest mountain in the Southern Alps and across Australasia.  Since 1990, the area has belonged to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The starting point for many recreational activities (hiking, mountaineering, skiing, scenic flights) is the settlement Aoraki Mount Cook Village, which also offers accommodation.  In the park itself there are 17 shelters for hikers.
Flora and Fauna

In Mount Cook National Park, there is little forest, which is a result of both natural factors (climate, slope, lack of suitable soils) and human impacts (fire of the Maori and later Europeans; damage caused by animals such as deer, chamois, springbok, rabbits and hares).  Nevertheless, there are over 550 species of alpine flora (without mosses, lichens and algae), of which 135 are endemic.
Among the most striking:
Giant mountain buttercup (Giant Mountain Buttercup Ranunculus lyallii)
Mountain Daisy (Mountain Daisy, Celmisia verbascifolia)
Snow-gentian (Snow Gentian, Gentiana bellidifolia)
Golden Spear Grass (Golden Spaniard, Aciphylla aurea)
Yellow Buttercup (Yellow Buttercup, Ranunculus acraeus)
Sheep Rug (Vegetable Sheep, Raoulia eximia)
South Island edelweiss (South Iceland Edelweiss, Leucogen grandiceps)
Particularly visible in the valley are multi-colored lupine.
Birds
The Kea (mountain parrot, Nestor notabilis) lives mainly near the tree line, but is also observed at high altitude.  It is endemic in the Southern Alps. In the 20th Century, the number of these birds fell sharply by hunting; the reason for this was the (probably highly exaggerated) fact that they sometimes attacked the sheep of the farmers. Meanwhile, the Kea is strictly protected.

The Rock Wren is also endemic here, after having been eradicated in the North Island.  This 10cm long, yellow-green (male) or olive brown (female) colored sparrow bird leaves the alpine zone rarely.

Despite the almost complete absence of forest, there are a number of forest birds in Mount Cook National Park that can be observed, including the green panties (Riflemen, Acanthisitta chloris), the Bellbird (Bellbird, Anthornis melanura), the Maorischnapper (Tomtit, Petroica macrocephala), the Gray-backed eye (Silvereye, Zosterops lateralis), and – rarely – the Tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae).
The many rivers in the national park are the habitat for many wading birds, including Schiefschnabel-Plover (Wrybill, Anarhynchus frontalis), Black-fronted Tern (Black-fronted Tern, Sterna albostriata), double band Plover (Banded Dotterel, Charadrius bicinctus), South Island Oystercatcher (South- Iceland Pied Oyster Catcher, Haematopus finschi) and Stilt (Pied Stilt, Himantopus himantopus).

Even the extremely rare black stilt (Black Stilt, Himantopus novaezelandiae) are found here.  Among others are ducks and geese especially Paradieskasarka (Paradise Shelduck, Tadorna variegata), which are striking.

Insects
There are many endemic species of butterflies, grasshoppers, spiders and other insects.  Remarkable for its frost tolerance particularly, the New Zealand Weta (Alpine Weta, Hemideina maori) grows in altitudes over 3,000 meters.