Oamaru's blue penguins have been granted breathing room by the Otago Regional Council.
The regional council had issued the consent for the Waitaki District Council's estimated $770,000 coastal protection plans, and armour rocks and 30cm-thick geotube sand mattresses would be installed in front of Oamaru Creek's penguin colony, roading manager Michael Voss said.
The protection of 240m of Oamaru's foreshore from Holmes Wharf to Oamaru Creek included moving the protective fencing north of Holmes Wharf back 10m to allow the 252 nesting boxes there to be moved away from the eroding foreshore.
Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony marine biologist Dr Philippa Agnew said she was ''very pleased'' the northern breeding colony had secured space.
Much of the original creekside penguin refuge area, on the other side of the harbour from the Tourism Waitaki tourist operation, had been lost to erosion over the past 15 years.
''There's no sense in protecting just that colony [the commercial operation],'' Dr Agnew said. ''We need to be looking at the penguins outside the colony as well.''
A healthy population in one colony could ''spill over'' into its surrounding area; the health of a colony was improved when outside birds began breeding in it; and the two colonies were ''kind of dependent on each other''.
''There is a little bit of swapping between colonies,'' Dr Agnew said. ''We get a few birds that are banded at one that start breeding at the other.
''We want good numbers, not just at the colony, but in the area, and the [Oamaru Creek Colony] helps with that.''
At the quarry site, 77 breeding pairs were ''on eggs'' and the first chick of the season had hatched earlier this month. The creek colony, which started later this season, had not produced a chick yet but had 50 pairs on eggs last week.
Mr Voss said council officers were drafting tender documents.
While ''very similar'' sand sausages had been installed recently in Dunedin, these would be the first geotube sand mattresses used to prevent erosion in the coastal Waitaki town.
In May, longtime penguin advocate Lorraine Adams, of informal Oamaru conservation group Coast Care, said she opposed the work.
She could not be reached for comment yesterday.
