Discord over how to save penguins

WITH widespread yelloweyed penguin chick deaths in Otago this year and colonies in some areas producing no chicks, a Moeraki penguin rescuer is questioning why the Department of Conservation does not intervene more to help save the endangered species.

Administering drugs to penguin chicks during the breeding season could be a key for the species’ survival, Penguin Rescue manager Rosalie Goldsworthy said.

She said the charitable organisation ran a volunteerled intervention programme, giving antibiotics to penguin chicks at the colony it manages, which saved the lives of scores of chicks of the endemic endangered species. And she questioned why the management technique was not being used by the Department of Conservation (Doc).

After a third straight season of the littleunderstood disease avian diphtheria running through the colony at Moeraki, Mrs Goldsworthy said she remained convinced a course of antibiotics in the first three to four weeks of a yelloweyed penguin’s life could make all the difference for colonies.

‘‘You need to have a survival rate better than one chick per nest for the colony to continue,’’ she said.

‘‘It’s inevitable — if they’re not replacing themselves, they’re down the tubes.

‘‘They [Doc] already know what we do — and that it works.’’

At Moeraki, of 42 nests, six failed and the remaining 36 nests produced 57 chicks.

Fortyseven of the chicks were treated with antibiotics and survived as a result, she said.

Widespread yelloweyed penguin chick deaths in Otago this year come on top of yet another decline in the number of nests established on the coast of mainland New Zealand.

Estimates of 250 yelloweyed penguin nests was down on the previous year’s 261, which had already lowered the bar as the fewest nests in a quarter of a century.

Last month the University of Otago’s Dr Thomas Mattern told the Otago Daily Times the biggest issue, among various reasons, for the ongoing population decline of what Doc calls possibly ‘‘one of the world’s rarest penguin species’’ was ‘‘penguins living far too close to humans’’.

The human activity he targeted was the fishing industry and, along with Forest & Bird, he called for the fishing industry to alter its practices concerning set netting.

Mrs Goldsworthy said the battle to save the birds would have to be fought on many fronts, but she could continue to administer antibiotics to penguin chicks.

Getting to chicks early and administering antibiotics for a period of five days would have a positive impact on population numbers and the species’ chance of survival.

‘‘At about three weeks two things happen, it [a penguin chick] stands up, and its own immune system kicks in,’’ she said.

‘‘At places like Bushy Beach [in Oamaru] where all the chicks died, that colony is doomed, and it is not acceptable, is it?’’

Doc veterinarian Kate McInnes said the department was ‘‘aware and is working on issues with avian diphtheria — particularly around the Otago coastline, where it is most prevalent in yelloweyed penguin (hoiho) chicks’’.

‘‘Some sites have lost many or all their chicks to avian diphtheria. But others have not.’’

PHOTO: HAMISH MACLEAN Healthy . . . When they are about 5 weeks old, yelloweyed penguin chicks’ immune systems can resist avian diphtheria. About threequarters of the chicks at Moeraki were treated for the disease this year.