Kerry-Jayne Wilson MNZM and Dr Thomas Mattern have completed a comprehensive review of the state of NZ penguins and it has been released today.
“This is a review of all that we know, and don’t know about all six NZ penguins, with a list of research and conservation management priorities for each species” said Kerry-Jayne.
Based on this review, Dr Mattern is leading a group of experts to work towards research and conservation goals outlined in the report under the banner “NZ Penguin Research & Conservation”. For a start, they will be focusing efforts on Little or Blue penguins/kororā and Fiordland penguins/tawaki.
Their goal is to work with community groups to establish a unified monitoring approach throughout NZ.
Dr Mattern explained: “We plan to develop a centralised database that is scalable to the level of monitoring the various community groups want to commit to. Apart from developing this database, we also plan to engage with community groups to train and assist them with their activities. We envisage that each group ultimately will be able to work autonomously towards a common monitoring strategy.”
“In the medium-term we are also thinking about establishing community-based monitoring of Little penguin foraging behaviour. However, at this stage we only plan to trial the viability of this idea
on the West Coast, working with the West Coast Penguin Trust.”
The State of NZ Penguins has been presented in website form: https://sop.penguinarchive.org/
Click here for a pdf of the “The State of NZ Penguins”.
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!
