SPCA helps penguins with cat cages

A spate of adult yellow-eyed penguin deaths occurred on Otago Peninsula during late-January to mid-February. The explanation for this is unknown. Many chicks were also affected. About a dozen were found starving or losing weight because one or both of their parents had died.

Penguin Place, a private conservation reserve on the peninsula, gives rehabilitation care to penguins that are sick, starving or wounded.

Penguins are normally transported to Penguin Place in cat cages but, in this case, there weren’t enough cages for the twelve chicks. Fortunately, the Otago SPCA, based in the Dunedin suburb of Opoho, came to the rescue with five cat cages, and the chicks were safely taken from the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust reserves to their temporary home.