Little blue penguins perish after slip

A little blue penguin nest box on the edge of a slip in the colony. Photo / Otago Daily Times

By Timothy Brown

Two penguin carcasses have been discovered after a slip swept away nesting boxes on Otago Peninsula.

The reserve at Taiaroa Head remains cut off from the rest of the peninsula after slips caused by the weekend storm swept over the only access road and cut a path through the hillside where little blue penguins were nesting.

Otago Peninsula Trust operations manager Hoani Langsbury, Pukekura Trust scientist Dr Hiltrun Ratz and Department of Conservation ranger Jim Watts accessed the area by boat yesterday to assess damage to the reserve and its wildlife, one of Otago's key tourism attractions.

Langsbury confirmed two little blue penguin carcasses had been discovered, but wildlife had largely escaped unharmed.

"The wildlife has held up probably better than the rest of us," Langsbury said.

Ratz said the slip had swept through "the best possible place" it could have, narrowly missing the majority of nesting boxes and giving most penguins an opportunity to escape. The nesting pairs, of which there were about 200, had not yet laid eggs.

"If they had eggs, they would have felt obliged to stay," she said.

"The bonding to the eggs is so strong.

"Not having eggs is possibly a blessing because hopefully they saved themselves."

Langsbury said though about 20 nesting boxes had been damaged by the slip, it could have worse.

It would be a month or so before losses would be known with any certainty.

The albatross colony had escaped with no damage and its 23 chicks were all fine, Watts said.

"In the colony there's no slips, no nothing. All the chicks are there and all alive."

Langsbury said he expected an update from the Dunedin City Council in the coming days about reopening the reserve to the public.