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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