Conservation collaboration for the world’s smallest penguin!

The tiny but mighty kororā / little penguins weigh in at around 1kg and stand tall at just over 33cm. This species was once common in New Zealand coast, but their numbers have been declining on the mainland – with most colonies restricted to our offshore islands.

So far, these manu remain understudied in New Zealand, with little robust population data for most of the country. The current data we have is insufficient to implement conservation management initiatives and in locations where long-term monitoring has occurred, it mostly relies on isolated efforts of community groups.

To try to reverse their decline, conservationists and community groups are banding together with support from the New Zealand Penguin Initiative and Penguins Plus Consultants, to learn more about the status of kororā in the wild and the reasons behind their declining populations. Once we can identify these factors, we can enact the management actions required to conserve kororā in different parts of New Zealand. Our zoo team are in the process of developing a conservation project on Auckland’s west coast; coordinating and working alongside iwi and small community groups to better understand the penguins that live on these beaches, and how we can help to protect them.

This conservation fieldwork team is made up of Auckland Zoo keepers from several animal care and conservation sections – birds, ungulates and primates, and is headed up by bird keeper Sarah. Sarah has lent her skills to other bird conservation projects in New Zealand, including two years helping with recovery efforts for hoiho with our friends at Dunedin Wildlife Hospital.

Recently, she and four of her colleagues travelled to Mount Maunganui in Tauranga for four days to take part in kororā field training, monitoring and a weekend workshop run by Western Bay Wildlife Trust and headed up by Julia Graham of Penguins Plus Consultants, who has been working with wild kororā for 15 years – including caring for penguins affected by the Rena oil spill off the coast of Tauranga in 2011.

During this training, our team were able to get hands on experience in locating penguins and penguin burrows. This included signs that identify occupied and unoccupied burrows. As the breeding season is underway, our team were able to learn how to safely use burrowscopes to look for penguins inside their burrows. A burrowscope is a three-metre length of hose which is mounted with infra-red lights and a miniature camera which can send images to a screen at the surface. This method has very low interference for the birds and is crucial in helping to understand whether penguins are returning to burrows over subsequent breeding seasons and to help determine health status of adults and chicks.

They also learnt how to safely and correctly catch and handle birds. Locating the penguins for health checks and microchipping is carried out when the penguins come ashore and head to their burrows at night. This can be a challenging process in the dark and each person is equipped with a head torch, navigating difficult terrain over rocks and boulders. Microchipping allows conservationists to identify individuals and requires special training for which Sarah is certified.

“The Penguins Plus, New Zealand Penguin Initiative, and Western Bay Wildlife Trust teams were extremely knowledgeable, very passionate and enthusiastic. I would say they are total penguin fiends! The training was hugely beneficial. They were so generous in sharing their knowledge and felt encouraged that we have shown a commitment to wanting to learn and take action,” explains our deputy curator of mammals Amy who also participates in the project.

Our keepers that care for kororā on a daily basis at the Zoo, have a thorough understanding of penguin behaviour. In recent years, our bird team have hatched and hand-reared little penguin Tamāroa, with an aim to grow a sustainable little penguin population here. Caring for numerous and varied bird species at the Zoo has benefits for transferring this knowledge into conservation projects for threatened species throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

“For our mammal keepers, this project is a great opportunity to be involved in field conservation as it’s something they may not get to do as much of, when compared to our ectotherm and bird team colleagues. I was able to refine my bird capture and handling skills and we all learned how to safely use a burrowscope. The awesome part is, now we get to put these skills into practical use our wider backyard and have ongoing involvement in helping kororā along Auckland’s west coast”

Amy grew up at ‘the Mount’ and wasn’t aware of the presence of kororā there at the time. She explains, “The more people realise just how fragile and precious and necessary penguins are for marine ecosystems the more they will be inspired to protect them. A key take away is that dogs should always be on a leash on beaches where they’re allowed to be, as dog predation is a key threat for these tiny penguins. That is one very simple action that people can do to ensure penguins stay safe and it requires little to no effort.”