Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust - Dunedin, New Zealand

Hoiho conservation

The Trust and other conservation organisations, especially the Department of Conservation, work to help hoiho by safeguarding their habitat (buying land for protection such as our reserve at Long Point/Irahuka), trapping mammalian predators, planting trees and shrubs to improve habitat, providing nesting opportunities, and advocating for penguin conservation. This is in addition to our monitoring work with the penguins and research into impacts on the population.

The Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust assists the penguins by alleviating some of the pressures we humans have imposed on them. Once free of these threats, yellow-eyed penguins are capable of doing the rest. This is a rewarding partnership, which succeeds if we do our bit.

How can we help?

We have several ongoing projects to help deal with the threats the Hoiho is suffering from. Click here to learn more.

Habitat conservation

The Trust’s extensive habitat conservation programme has seen numerous native trees and shrubs planted to provide habitat for hoiho. Native vegetation provides shade and privacy for penguins whilst they are nesting, roosting or moulting on land.

Planting has additional benefits for the wider ecosystem including erosion control, sequestering carbon and providing clean air, improving stream quality and providing habitat for other land animals (e.g. insects, lizards and forest birds), marine birds (e.g. petrels and tītī) and marine mammals (e.g. seals and sea lions).

Nest boxes have also been added at various reserves to provide additional nesting opportunities, particularly in places where there is no understory to provide privacy for hoiho or where trees are slow to grow.

Planting helps to protect the sand dunes from erosion

Ferrets can kill hoiho chicks and adults

Predator control

Introduced mammalian predators pose a serious threat to most New Zealand animals including penguins. Predation from invasive mammals is now managed via trapping at many breeding sites across the penguins range.

A suite of traps and baits can be used, depending on the target predator. The Trust staff, volunteers and associates maintain trap lines at all of our reserves, which are checked regularly during the year.

The most widely used traps on our reserves are DOC 200s and DOC 250s, targeting rats and mustelids, with smaller numbers of Mk6 Fenn traps, which are gradually being phased out as they reach the end of their operational lives. Possums are targeted using Timms traps and Goodnature A12 self-setting traps. Feral cats are trapped with Steve Allan cat traps.

Our trapping programmes are carefully designed to ensure that the traps are effective for the site and that they are “penguin proof” i.e. do not catch protected species. This means that traps are set in tunnels to prevent access by non-target species, fixed to the trunks of trees or placed outside the penguin breeding areas.

Rehabilitation of sick, injured and under weight hoiho

Rehabilitation is increasingly being used as a conservation management tool for endangered species like the yellow-eyed penguin. Hoiho that are injured, underweight or diseased are often brought into rehabilitation facilities to be treated and nursed back to health.

Sometimes birds require veterinary care prior to rehab for lacerations and wounds, and to reduce complications from infections of the tendons, joints and bones. The Dunedin Wildlife Hospital Trust and the South Island Wildlife Hospital provide this specialist support.

The Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust works closely with penguin rehabilitation centres in the South Island. There are three facilities for hoiho in Otago (The Otago Peninsula Eco Restoration Alliance – The OPERA, Penguin Rescue and Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony) and one in Canterbury (Christchurch Penguin Rehab). In 2022, the Trust established a rehab facility on Stewart Island. Currently, no such facility exists in the Catlins.

Continued improvements in recent years mean that rehabilitation and treatment of hoiho is highly successful.

Penguin is fed while in rehabilitation at The OPERA

Public viewing

Viewing protocol

Captivity

Public viewing of yellow-eyed penguins / hoiho

The best way to watch hoiho is with a commercial operator. This way you can get all of the inside knowledge and ensure that you have minimum impact on the birds.

There are several commercial operations which take visitors to view hoiho. They can be contacted via the local visitor centre:

Oamaru Visitor Information, 1 Thames Street, Oamaru, phone 03 434 1656
Dunedin Visitor Centre, Civic Centre, 50 The Octagon, Dunedin, phone 03 474 3300
Catlins Information Centre, 10 Campbell Street, Owaka, phone 03 415 8371
Invercargill Information Centre, 108 Gala Street, Invercargill, phone 03 211 0895

Another option is to go to a beach with a public viewing hide, so you can watch penguins without disturbing them. There are hides on the Otago and Southland coast at Bushy Beach, Curio Bay and Nugget Point Reserve.

Public viewing of yellow-eyed penguins / hoiho

The Trust encourages the public to be invisible and inaudible when viewing hoiho, preferably using a hide or viewing point so the penguin is less aware of your presence.

Birds are very vulnerable to disturbance from humans. Human presence can be particularly stressful during the breeding season and when birds are moulting. Adults may flee and not return to feed chicks if disturbed. Moulting birds are unable to go to sea during the 4 week moult and are low on energy as they have not fed during this time, this makes it hard for them to get away.

The public should vacate beaches adjacent to penguin nest areas during the times when the birds are coming in or leaving for sea. This is generally from mid-afternoon until dark. If you are caught on the beach or a track by a returning yellow-eyed penguin the best thing is be quiet, and move away when the opportunity arises. Do not move toward the penguin or it may flee back to sea.

Please follow these simple guidelines to minimise impact and stress on the penguins:

For the best views, take binoculars, instead of approaching or following birds.
Keep your distance – 50 metres away is best.
Talk quietly and move slowly.
Hide so they can’t see you (squat down low if you can’t hide, so you are not as visible).
Keep to formed tracks and don’t cross fence lines.
Keep your dog away from penguins – they may kill them.

The question of captivity

As an endemic species the hoiho is fully protected under the Wildlife Act 1953. Whilst the Trust supports rehabilitation and surgery for injured and sick birds there are a number of limitations with captivity of wild penguins:

Long-term captivity is not an appropriate solution for a long-ranging, long-lived animal.
Behavioural traits that are learned or culturally transmitted may be lost in captivity.
Species may become progressively adapted to captivity and may be incapable of producing viable wild populations; domestication may be rapid.
There is an increased risk of disease in captivity which may then be introduced into wild populations.
Costs associated with captive breeding programmes are massive.
As the marine environment is unable to sustain birds in some years, there is little point in raising populations for release into a system that cannot support and provide for them.

The Trust believes that captive populations of hoiho are not necessary at this time because it is preferable to maintain fully functioning wild populations of this species.