One of the penguins under the Kendalls' house.
By Libby Kirkby-McLeod of RNZ
Imagine sharing your home with noisy flatmates who party throughout the night and then move into your bedroom.
That is what one Coromandel couple say it has been like living with little blue penguins who have taken to tunnelling under their home and nesting next to their bed under the floorboards.
Tracy and Peter Kendall are at their wits’ end about how to get a good night’s sleep with these rowdy interlopers.
The Kendalls have enjoyed sharing their home on the cliff above Waitete Bay with penguins for many years.
The penguins would come and nest under their deck and it was a delight for them and their visitors.
Birds and people alike shared their slice of paradise while giving each other space.
“That’s the relationship we really had, which was a very nice, friendly, warm relationship, right up until about two years ago,” Peter Kendall said.
That is when the penguins decided to make their move.
“They’ve moved from the living area into our bedroom area, we’re at the back of the house, and they have set up camp basically right outside where our bed is in our bedroom,” Tracy Kendall said.
The penguins are not quiet slumber party guests.
“It’s very, very noisy at night, their active period seems to be around six or seven, right through the night until seven or so in the morning.”
And they do not take a break from their nocturnal penguin activities.
“They’ll go squawking and making lots of penguin sort of noises around every 20 minutes, right through the night,” she said.
Tracy is recovering from an operation and, unable to sleep, things are getting desperate.
Peter said if they did not care for the penguins they could have just picked them up and shifted them off site.
But the couple know the animals are precious and need professional care to move.
“We’re not allowed to move them because they are protected animals, which we totally understand, but you’d need to get a qualified person to do so and we can’t find that qualified person,” Peter said.
The couple have reached out to the Department of Conservation who told RNZ someone from the department would be happy to pop around and give the Kendalls some advice.
But DoC’s principal adviser of biodiversity in Coromandel, Ben Gordon, said nothing can really be done until the penguins themselves decide to move on.
“If you do have birds which are currently nesting, then once they have finished nesting you want to get in there and block off the access points before they come back for the moulting season, because they are creatures of habit,” he said.
Coromandel operations manager for DoC, Nick Kelly, said moving the penguins would do more harm than good.
But he said he empathises with the Kendalls as penguins are “loud”.
“But it really does highlight that we are a part of nature. Probably the best thing that the department can do is really advocate for ways that we can live together in harmony [with nature].”
- RNZ