Stewart Island penguins fighting to survive

BARRY HARCOURT/Southland Times

WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID? Yellow-eyed penguin numbers are declining on Stewart Island.

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Just six of 25 yellow-eyed penguin chicks hatched in monitored areas of Stewart Island had survived so far this summer, the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust said.

The island's penguin population faces an uncertain future after a devastating breeding season last summer in which all 33 chicks being monitored died. Breeding rates have been plummeting since monitoring began four years ago.

In the early 1990s the trust estimated 600 breeding pairs were on the island but by 2000 that had dropped to about 200 pairs.

Trust projects officer for southern islands Sandy King said this yellow-eyed penguin breeding season has been a mixed bag so far.

Monitoring on the tip of the north-eastern coast of Stewart Island showed all 10 of the chicks hatched there had already died.

These chicks all appeared to be starving, and some had lesions in their mouths, which indicated the disease diphtheritic stomatitis - one of two diseases that killed chicks in the past, she said.

Tissue samples had been sent to Massey University for autopsy but no results were back yet.

"All of these chicks died within three weeks of hatching, which is a repeat of what happened last season." It was not all bad news because in the remainder of the monitored section of coast 15 chicks had hatched and there were still six "big, fat and fluffy chicks" that appeared healthy, Ms King said.

However, a total of six chicks surviving out of 25 hatched was not brilliantly successful. The trust was also aware the chick that survived the longest last season died in February before he took to the water, she said.

What was of real concern in the monitored area was the steadily decreasing number of breeding pairs.

This was in contrast to the nearby small island sites the trust had been monitoring during the same period when the numbers of breeding pairs had been relatively consistent.

On the monitored small islands in Paterson Inlet, 31 chicks had hatched this season and 28 were still alive. These all looked healthy so far, she said.

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