As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday 10 June 2018

Rare yellow-eyed penguins killed by dogs at Catlins wildlife reserve



24 May, 2018 2:33pm
By: Hamish MacLean

Two yellow-eyed penguins have been killed by dogs at a wildlife reserve in the Catlins over the past four weeks.

Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust general manager Sue Murray called the deaths at the trust's Long Point Irahuka Reserve south of Owaka ''devastating'' in so far as they were ''totally preventable''.

Signs at the reserve clearly indicated dogs were not allowed.

The South Island's estimated 250 breeding pairs of the bird remain the lowest for one of the world's rarest penguin species for more than a quarter of a century, and experts have predicted the penguins' extinction from mainland New Zealand because of threats such as climate change, starvation and disease, including avian diphtheria and avian malaria.


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