Janet Hunt

Janet Christine Hunt (born 3 September 1951) is a New Zealand writer of non-fiction works for children and adults. She writes primarily about wildlife. Her 2007 book Wetlands of New Zealand received the top prize for non-fiction at the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

Background Hunt was born in Stratford, Taranaki, New Zealand, on 3 September 1951. She grew up in Inglewood on her parents' dairy farm and attended Inglewood High School.

Hunt holds a Bachelor of Arts with honours from Massey University, a teaching diploma from Palmerston North Teachers' College and a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of Auckland. Her thesis was about the poetry of Hone Tuwhare. She has been a member of Forest & Bird since 1997; in 2014 she became the chairwoman of North Taranaki Forest & Bird. It won Book of the Year and Best in Non-Fiction at the 2004 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, won the 2004 Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction, and was listed as a 2004 Storylines Notable Non-Fiction Book.

Wetlands of New Zealand: A Bitter-sweet Story (2007) won the Environment award and the top prize for non-fiction at the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Hunt did her own design and illustrations for the book, which was about the migration of a bar-tailed godwit. and was listed as a 2010 Storylines Notable Non-Fiction Book

In 2017 and 2019 Hunt published two children's books of stories about Wildbase Hospital, a wildlife rehabilitation hospital which is part of Massey University. A review in The Daily Post said Hunt "manages to provide a fascinating amount of detail about kiwi and how they survive which can be easily read by children and enjoyed by adults at the same time".

Selected works Hone Tuwhare: A biography (1998) A Bird in the Hand: Keeping New Zealand Wildlife Safe (Random House, 2003) From Weta to Kauri: A Guide to the New Zealand Forest (Random House, 2004) Wetlands of New Zealand: A Bitter-sweet Story (Random House, 2007)) E3 Call Home (Random House, 2009) Paradise Saved: The Remarkable Story of New Zealand's Wildlife Sanctuaries and How They Are Stemming the Tide of Extinction (Random House, 2014), co-authored with Dave Butler and Tony Lindsay Our Big Blue Backyard: New Zealand's Oceans and Marine Reserves (Random House, 2014) How to mend a Kea: + other fabulous fix-it tales from Wildbase Hospital (Massey University Press, 2017) Three Kiwi Tales: more fabulous fix-it stories from Wildbase Hospital (Massey University Press, 2019)