Nesting boxes to help blue penguins stay safe
Little blue penguins coming ashore to nest near Port Tarakohe may soon find new safe homes, thanks to one Golden Bay man.
Tarakohe resident, Bob Butts, is building penguin nesting boxes out of recycled mussel boy floats from the harbour to place along the seaward side of the coast from Pohara to Ligar Bay.
The area has long been a habitat for blue penguins, but numbers of the birds have declined over the years, Butts said.
‘‘This time of the year the penguins start the nesting process, and every year I come across at least half a dozen dead ones on the road that have been run over.’’
As well as building nests in the rocks along the breakwater, the birds nest in the Tarakohe cliffs on the other side of the road.
During the breeding season, June to December, the penguins can be seen crossing the road to reach their nests each night, also making the return crossing to the sea at dawn.
Every year some are killed by cars as they cross the road. The aim of the boxes is to encourage the birds to stay on the seaward side of the road.
‘‘We know there’s at least 30 or 40 nesting pairs on that West- ern arm,’’ Butts said.
‘‘If you run one over, you have probably killed one or two chicks in the nest because they can’t incubate and feed with just one parent. Once they are into the breeding season it’s a shared duty by both partners.’’
Butts said the Department of Conservation had done an excellent job of making wooden nesting boxes for the coastal area since 2011.
‘‘That’s been quite successful: they put something like 80 nesting boxes in and they had an occupancy of about 50 penguins,’’ he said.
‘‘But it’s not been ideal and I think we can improve on the design.’’
He hoped the new design would be warmer, drier and safer from predators like dogs and cats.
With other volunteers, Matt Roundtree and Lynne and Brian Ensor, Butts had started putting the nesting boxes along the coastline.
‘‘This will go on all year to build up nest numbers,’’ he said.