​Hello friends and family
Life is busy with just routine tasks. On Monday the TV3 reporters came and, interestingly, they had done some research beforehand and so the whole thing went smoothly.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/01/otago-sanctuary-takes-action-to-save-yellow-eyed-penguin-population.html
On Tuesday a new volunteer, Nicky from Palmerston came out for a look around. She will be doing beach searches near her home which is just great. I put the truck in for its warrant of fitness and it failed – I need a new windscreen. Jan and Robbie came out to re-bait the traps and we caught our 4th ferret.

​Big Daniel arrived on Wednesday and little Daniel went off to visit friends in Karatane. Robbie came out on Thursday and he had a crack at some of the thistles while I watered the ferns. Big Daniel weed-eated the paths for the penguins.

​Friday was the day that a team came up from Dunedin to help weigh all the chicks and train up Robbie and Jan for micro-chipping. What a treat for us to have these penguin people visit. The chicks are all doing well – the heaviest over 6 Kg and the lightest around 5. They are getting better every day and feeding them is now fun.

On Saturday one of our Penguin Rescue members came down from Christchurch with a group of young Chinese women who helped by weeding at the Moeraki Colony. We got the 6th ferret and brought the last of the chicks in from the wild. It had stopped gaining weight and its parent was no longer closely guarding it, so in it came. We also got an unmarked Juvenile that is feeding from the hand. Maybe it had a band that fell off. I was also able to read about the autopsy report for our chicks in the media.
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/north-otago/ferret-main-suspect-killing-penguin-chicks
Sometimes it is a bit like riding a roller coaster!
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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​Hello friends and family
We are busy shuffling fish from the freezer, to the laundry, to containers and then into penguins. The extreme weather that we have had means it is a challenge to get the fish defrosted in the serious quantities required. 

​The American group from Lee McRae college who are studying wildlife rehabilitation visited on Sunday, but the weather was too bad to do anything outside. They came back for the day on Monday and protected cabbage trees in the morning and cleaned penguin pens in the afternoon. Their vet, Lee spent the day with us on Tuesday and we talked a lot about feathers. In flying birds, the shafts of the feathers tell the story of the bird’s health. We think that the state of our penguin feathers currently reflects their health when they grew the feathers for their last moult. The starvation event last year is showing up as degraded feathers now. We will be extra vigilant in our monitoring.

​On Tuesday we did the rounds and again on Thursday. We weighed the chick still in the colony and it is now 2.5 Kg – double its weight last time. I have released the two adult males and will keep the rest (5) until they moult. We have done running repairs on the enclosures and went to town on Friday.

On Saturday, Daniel and I walked the coast with Elaine and then Daniel went fishing while I put supers on the bees. Then we went to the Tavern for tea to celebrate Daniel doing so well at school last year. Dinner was Yum!
Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
I wish you all the best for the next year and the next decade.
Onwards and upwards! This is the decade in which we save Yellow-eyed penguins (and other iconic New Zealand species) from the brink of extinction – one penguin at a time if necessary. 

​Last Sunday, with 2 chicks predated and 3 missing, we made the call to uplift all the rest and keep them safe from predation and Malaria until they fledge which will be early February. The youngest one is still being protected by its parents, so it is still in the colony. The decision was difficult, but once made, straight forward to implement. We have since been advised by a predator control expert and have caught 2 ferrets and Joe shot a cat. We have had reports of other predators in the colony so know that we made the best decision.

​Either Jan or Robbie have been coming for every feed, so it has been okay. By Wednesday the first of the chicks were feeding from the hand, and so they are settling as well as can be expected. Michelle and Charlie joined the feeding team on Friday so that spreads the load.

ON Saturday the team assembled to microchip the 48 penguin chicks and screen them for malaria. It took the whole day and I was the only one who left early as I picked Daniel up from the airport. What an achievement. Most of the chicks had put on about a kilogram so they are doing well.
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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​Hello friends and family
These are challenging times for penguins. 10 years ago we had 46 Yellow-eyed penguin nests here at Moeraki and now we are down to 38. The mainland-based population 10 years ago was around 600 nests and now it is 155. 

 ​Of those 38 nests here, 5 have failed. One failed at the incubation stage – the female disappeared, and the male was forced to abandon the eggs, one at the brooding stage when the female disappeared, and the chicks died of starvation. One lost their chick last week, maybe to predation and we brought in the male and 2 chicks from another nest on Tuesday. The chicks weighed only 90% of what they should, and the male is a wreck. On Thursday we found a predated chick so brought the sibling into safety.

​Our response to the chicks dying of starvation was to weigh every chick once a week so that we can detect when they stop thriving sooner. This is not a task that I would take on single handed and is only possible because of the awesome team we have here. 50 sets of very sharp claws can be daunting.

Our response to the predation is to put live traps in the reserve – we have no other options available to us. Our regular trap line is monitored weekly and we regularly change the baits. Yesterday we found another predated chick. If they continue to die, we will bring in the post-guard ones that rely on camouflage to survive – it is not working for them. The tough thing for them is that there is no going back to the parents – they will have to fledge from here.
Let’s all hope that the next decade brings recovery to the penguins and health and happiness to us all!
Have a great week
Rosalie
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​Hello friends and family.
On Sunday and Monday, I got around the bees and added extra boxes where needed and on Tuesday the much-promised rain arrived (15 mm). Robbie and Robyn came and checked out the Moeraki colony while I went down the hill here.

​All the chicks were in their boxes except one that was in a dry spot under the trees. We did not weigh them as they would have got wet. In the evening I went to the Mayor’s Christmas function and was thrilled to see Hugh there. He has now retired from the Council and lives in Christchurch. I also caught up with Hamish who has been promoted to environmental reporter for the ODT in Dunedin – well deserved.

​ I must have been feeling in a good mood because I actually talked to some of the Councillors about the plight of the penguins. Every request I make is interpreted as a request for money. It takes about 5 times to get the message through that the issue is protecting penguins from uncontrolled tourists, not funding our work. Then they pass the buck with such finesse that I can tell that they have a real skill at it. The problem, they say, is national, and belongs to DOC, it is even international and why don’t I apply to WWF for money? I reply that the penguins live here.
ON my way home at 8:30 pm I passed the last car leaving the car park. 

Robbie and Jules made up the team on Thursday and we caught up by weighing every chick except one that we could not find! On the whole they are making great progress – only two are causing concern and I will check them daily for the next little while. Some of them are now over 3 Kg, and right on schedule, I found chicks in both colonies home alone. This is called post-guard and is the next step in their young lives.
Have a wonderful festive season
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
Mel and Rachael came up on Sunday and with Mel’s guidance, I was able to get my Transponder permit updated and so now I can continue to mark penguins as needed. The system had been upgraded in 2018 but no-one had told me so now that problem is fixed! I gave them the 2 dead chicks in the freezer to take back for post-mortem – before they left, I weighed them. To my horror they had lost weight, so it was possible starvation played a role in their deaths.

​Knowing this, we have begun weighing all the chicks to prevent this happening again. We weighed the doubles on Tuesday and found 2 nests with underweight chicks and then the singles on Thursday where we found more underweight chicks. If they weigh in the normal range, we will check them weekly, but if they are underweight, we will weigh them 3 times a week. The chicks from Tuesday had put on weight by Thursday, but not enough to get them out of the danger zone. Some will be coming into care. The question is not if, but when. We want them to stay in the wild for as long as possible.

​As well as busy penguins, we have had thousands of sea birds feeding close to shore – gulls, terns, shags, gannets and petrels. We think they have come down here to escape the murky waters further north from when the Canterbury rivers flooded, closed all the roads and spilled silt into the ocean. They appeared to be eating Pilchards which are normally only found further north.

​Wednesday was my day at the Top-tip and I was back there again on Friday evening for the Dump Christmas party. After that event, Robbie and I went north to be part of a Long-Tailed Bat excursion. There were about 50 people and it was a very enjoyable evening even though we did not see any live bats. Elaine and Hiltrun came on the Saturday round and all the chicks were just fine, although one had not put on any weight.

This time last week we had no internet because flooding had taken out the cable. Here at the lighthouse, we have had only 5 mm of rain so far this month.
Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
The penguin chicks are growing fast and mostly out of the danger zone for Diphtheria, so we have cut back on monitoring rounds to be able to get other things done. We did the rounds on Tuesday. 

​I have been out and about a bit this week. On Monday I went to the dentist in Oamaru and had to go back on Wednesday. While I was in town, I got a call about a penguin stranded on Katiki Beach so picked it up on my way home. Much to my surprize, there were traffic lights on Lighthouse road. We are always busier when the weather is terrible on the West Coast and this week has been no exception. Even so, it is very busy. 

​The promised rain stayed away so on Friday Michelle and Charlie came to do some watering.
By Saturday, SH 1 was closed with the Rangitata River bursting its banks and we still had no rain! Hiltrun and Elaine came to do the rounds yesterday and it really was hot. The chicks are coming out of their nests which is very cute. The last egg has hatched, giving us 52 chicks – 26 in each colony.

Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
Nasty November is over! We have come through it, along with 53 chicks that have survived their first challenge and we can now relax a little, while keeping a close watch on the penguins to ensure that they get the help they need in a timely fashion. Last week was made even more interesting when I developed an abscess on my remaining front tooth. I had it extracted on Wednesday and the dentist stuck it to my partial plate so I could carry on with my busy schedule and not frighten anybody!

​We had prepared for a Hui on Thursday, but it was called off. Will came up anyway, so he did the rounds with us to see first-hand what is involved with treating Diphtheria in the field. This week we  will be finishing the daily visits and start getting back onto the list of jobs that need doing, including monitoring for Mosquitoes.

​Our DOC permit arrived this week and I find that I must renew my micro-chipping permit. I will get on to that quickly as the main opportunity for me to qualify is when we micro-chip the chicks in about a month’s time. The DOC permit seems more relevant this time and will last for 5 years. 

​I have 2 penguins in care and released one during the week. The 2 juveniles had fungal throat and the adult is displaying symptoms of Malaria. His bloods seem clear but he sits in the house with his head in the darkest corner which is not usual. He may have the tissue phase of the disease.

Hiltrun and John are here to remove the data loggers off the tracker penguins. We are very interested to see where they go fishing!
Have a great week
Rosalie
​