The death of 29 little blue penguins at Doctors Point last week is a graphic illustration of the problems facing conservation groups in and around the Dunedin area.
Conservation workers spoken to this week said they were only ''holding our own'' with some endangered species and more research was desperately needed.
Otago Peninsula Trust Taiaroa Head operations manager Hoani Langsbury said the collective work of all groups on the peninsula meant they were winning some battles.
He believed without the work of the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust, the species would be gone from the peninsula.
Yellow-eyed penguins were hit twice by major events in the past two years: first by an unknown toxin in their environment and this year by a severe food shortage.
Other species in the same intensively managed area were doing better, including little blue penguins and albatross at Taiaroa Head.
In fact, albatross were doing better than red-billed gulls, which were on the decline, Mr Langsbury said.
Possums had been all but eradicated from the end of the peninsula by the Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Group and that had helped when it came to restoring native plants, Mr Hoani said.
He said there was only so much conservation workers could do for marine birds because they spent so much time at sea and more research was needed to study their habitat and the threats there.
Department of Conservation services manager in Dunedin David Agnew agreed, saying they were good at managing species on land but did not know enough about the marine environment of some species. He said breeding colonies on land that were intensively managed for pests were the ones doing well or at least able to maintain a population.
Predators had already cleaned out the ''easy pickings'' in other areas.
The death of the 29 penguins at Doctors Point showed how easy it was for a population to be decimated by what was thought to be a single stoat or ferret.
Traps had since been strung around the area with the help of the local runanga and a resident, but the predator was still at large.
