West Coast Penguin Trust Ranger, Lucy Waller, makes the case for penguins, loving them, conserving them and presenting them to children as a gateway to more conservation conversations.
Lucy explains that kids love penguins – penguins are the perfect advocate to present an environmental/conservation message to all ages. From one child, to a class of children, a school and from there to parents and their community, whole community shifts can happen and with that genuine environmental change. The local connection to nature makes conservation real and actions to make a difference more manageable.
Over the past year or so, Lucy has worked with St Patrick’s School in Greymouth as they have followed the Trust’s education resource, learned about local penguins and started taking actions to help them.
Read Lucy’s article for a UK environmental education journal here: Environmental Education journal article May 2018
While materials were chosen that would stand up to the harsh coastal conditions, those same coastal conditions are conducive to plant growth! Occasional checks of the fences have been carried out by volunteers and rangers so that any maintenance needs can be identified and remedied. The never-ending need for maintenance is managing the vegetation that can grow through the fence, for example gorse, blackberry and hydrangea, pushing it to breaking point in places, or flop over causing damage from the weight of rank grass, rushes and weeds such as montbretia.
Volunteers recently spent a few hours tidying up the main fence along Woodpecker Bay north of Punakaiki so a big shout out to them - thank you Fiona, Jony, Reef, Katrina, Mandy, Marty, Teresa and Deb! Flax had been pressing down on the fence, but now the fence has been freed up by these wonderful volunteers - and they picked up a fair bit of rubbish too.
Volunteer Natassja Savidge has offered to check and help maintain the Hokitika penguin protection fence and joined Ranger Lucy Waller and Manager Inger Perkins in May to inspect the length of the fence. Some minor issues were found but the main finding was the extent of the vegetation growth that was damaging the fence in places. Big thanks to Natassja!
