We are so lucky here on the West Coast to have such cool, proactive and enthusiastic children and youth, tamariki and rangatahi, who give up their time and energy to help protect and advocate for our local wildlife, particularly our penguins!

Whether it’s through school projects, girl guides, scouts, or volunteering, the young people of the West Coast are always keen to help support our cause.  Aged 4 years to 19 years old!

There are hundreds of you out there that we would like to thank, so we cannot possibly mention you all by name, and some of you wouldn’t want your names out there either, so we say a very huge, heart-felt thank you to every single one of you! You know who you are!

Hours spent picking up litter along the local beaches and taking it back to school in bags to study and separate for a litter survey with Sustainable Coastlines.

 

Persuading grandparents and parents, uncles and aunties to come down to the beach for the morning to spot and count tracks, make plaster of Paris footprints, and study a penguin’s habitat.

 

Fundraising, sourcing and building, nest boxes to provide safe shelter for penguins in the breeding season, away from dogs and other predators.

 

Learning about and spotting plants that create a good habitat for penguins, to make a planting project plan for the future.

 

Sheltering from the rain and the outdoor elements in the Winter and learning about our taxidermied ‘Kevin the Kororā’ in the classroom, with fun activities.

 

Level 3 science student taking penguin education to the next level and leading a penguin project with a primary class for a scholarship programme. Many hours went into sourcing the wood, cutting and preparing each piece for a DIY penguin box package for each group to simply assemble and nail.

 

Lunch hours and break times learning about penguin adaptations and anatomy for level 2 and 3 biology units of work.

 

Dissecting penguins to learn about anatomy, determine cause of death, understanding the health of the penguins and taking part in an international nasal mite study where the findings were sent to Brazil.

 

Hundreds of penguin masks made and worn over the years at Children’s Day events at Cass Square, Hokitika, with the challenge being to tell as many people as you can to take care of our penguins this season!

 

Getting silly and making a fool of ourselves, becoming penguins and seeing the difficult journey they have to make each day to return home and feed their chicks.

 

Litter, litter, litter…..all this was found at the local Hokitika Beach…..

 

Becoming Penguin Ranger Assistants having built nest boxes and completed many classroom activities to learn all about our penguins and how to protect them.

 

So many more photos and so many more activities…….. too many for this article, so we will do a Part 2 coming soon …….

 

Ngā mihi kaitiaki tamiriki!

Lucy Waller, WCPT Ranger