Sassy, hardy, and vicious: that’s how yellow-eyed penguins are fondly described by the people who spend their
days working with them.
“(They) aren’t as cute and cuddly as they look,” says Jason van Zanten, conservation manager at Penguin
Place in the Otago Peninsula, New Zealand. “They can give you a really hard slap.”
Locally called hoiho, which means “noise shouter” in Māori, the yellow-eyed penguin is the largest of the penguin species that live and breed on New Zealand’s mainland.
But its population has fallen dramatically in the past 30 years due to increasing threats from predators, climate change and disease. “In the last 10 or so years, we’ve lost about three-quarters of the population,” says van Zanten.
With an estimated 3,000 mature individuals left in the wild, it’s one of the most endangered penguin species in the world.
Now, conservationists are rallying to save the species. Penguin Place — where van
Zanten works — provides a place for hoiho to rest and recuperate while nearby, The Wildlife Hospital, Dunedin treats those with serious injury and disease.
These penguin havens are racing against the clock to save the rapidly declining population — and give the “noise shouters” a fighting chance at survival.
Penguins in rehab
While Penguin Place is a refuge for all sick and starving birds, including other penguin species,
hoiho make up the majority of patients passing through, says van Zanten.
The center was founded in 1985 when local farmer Howard McGrouther fenced off around 150 acres of his land to create a reserve for the eight breeding pairs of yellow-eyed penguins that nested on his property.
McGrouther “set up the bones of the rehabilitation center,” and also started replanting native
trees that were previously cleared for agriculture, says van Zanten,
who began working at the center as a laborer, cutting grass and doing maintenance,
and now oversees operations. The center was funded entirely by tourism until the Covid-19 pandemic, when it had to close to the public and was granted government funding through the department of conservation, says van Zanten.