For the second year in a row, little blue penguins are washing up on Tasman beaches, exhausted and starving.
Trustee for the Tasman Bay Blue Penguin Trust, Linda Jenkins, has responded to multiple callouts over the past three months to pick up the little blues – kororā - mostly fledglings, many of which can no longer stand.
Last year, about 60 penguins were found dead or dying around Tasman Bay, between the Abel Tasman National Park and Nelson, and she says this year is shaping up even worse, with that number reached a month earlier.
She says their plight appears to be linked to a lack of food due caused by warming ocean temperatures, which are driving their food source into cooler, deeper waters further out. As a result, the parent birds must expend more time and energy diving for food, and when they struggle, so do their chicks.
“Last year we just got slammed and we thought what’s happening here? This year, it started earlier and it seems to be more intense.”
Adult penguins are often already underweight before they begin raising chicks, due to limited food during their own growth, she says. Normally, parent birds take turns returning to the nest each night and feeding chicks, but nest cameras showed that did not always happen this year.
As a result, starving chicks that were not fully developed and lacked adult waterproof feathers headed out to sea in search of food in November and December.
Linda says many succumbed to cold, as well as starvation. “They’ve still got their down on them and go searching for food. They’re not waterproof and can’t forage, so they become hypothermic and end up on the beach. Sometimes they can’t even hold their head up.”
Many chicks found on beaches were only half the weight they should be, she says. Underweight adult birds are also suffering, particularly during their two-week moult in January-February when they are forced to remain ashore without feeding.
“Before they moult they bulk up for some reserves, and if they can’t bulk up enough their body weight deteriorates more – they can lose about 30 per cent of their body weight. It’s a really tough time for them as they’re so vulnerable.”
A mobile incubator donated to the trust has saved several penguins this season and Linda says she is “kitted up and ready to go” when someone finds a struggling penguin on a beach.
The trust and Department of Conservation also want to know about dead penguins, which are included in data collection to help build a clearer picture about the little blues’ plight.
Linda says two Fiordland crested penguin – tawaki – are also in the care at the local rehabilitation clinic after being found on Tasman beaches. Her advice to anyone who finds a sick or injured penguin is to call the DOC hotline 0800 3628 4688. The trust can be contacted on 021 797 267 or found online.
