penguins

Discovering a tourist had lit a campfire in the dunes at Sandfly Bay right next to a threatened yellow-eyed penguin colony was the last straw for volunteer Pat Dean.

Looking after the chicks orphaned by the mysterious deaths of adult yellow-eyed penguins on Otago Peninsula has become a full-time job.

The bodies of more than 40 endangered yellow-eyed penguins have been found on Otago Peninsula, raising concerns of a repeat of a ''mass mortality'' event which wiped out 60% of peninsula breeding adults in 1990.

The Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust has indicated to the Dunedin City Council it will seek the council's support in its battle against the threat to the species from inshore commercial fishing.

Transtasman co-operation will be to the fore next week when penguin experts from New Zealand and Australia converge in Oamaru for the eighth annual Oamaru Penguin Symposium.

A planting afternoon will be held at Brighton Domain this weekend to improve habitat for the region's penguins.

To protect nesting yellow-eyed penguins, the Boulder Beach Conservation Area will again be closed to the public for three months.

Oamaru woman Sue Downton has returned home from a fortnight in the Bay of Plenty spent caring for little blue penguins fouled or threatened by oil spilling from the shipwrecked Rena.

It has been third time lucky for University of Otago zoologist Prof Jonathan Waters as he starts investigating whether some of our native coastal species, including the yellow-eyed penguin, really are native.

An initiative to keep both people and penguins happy around Oamaru Harbour is being set up by the Waitaki Tourism Association.