Little penguins on Phillip Island experience baby boom

Updated

The little penguins of Phillip Island are experiencing a baby boom.

Last summer's breeding season was the best in a generation, a dramatic turnaround from the 1990s when either foxes were snatching the flightless birds or they were starving to death.

Research manager of the Phillip Island Nature Parks Dr Peter Dann says the rise in population is "about food".

"These chicks are fatter, they've grown faster, the parents have brought back more food. The parents have been heavier than normal right through the breading seasons," he said.

Dr Dann says it is a far cry from the 1990s, when food was scarce.

"It was even worse in 1995, when the main food they were eating during that breeding time was pilchard, and the pilchard had a huge die-off right across southern Australia to New Zealand," he said.

"A lot of birds were actually dying of starvation and they bred very late.

"One of the curious things about all this is that when Australia's warmer, particularly in Autumn, penguins start breeding earlier in the following Spring and they breed much better than when Bass Strait's cooler in Autumn."

Over the past 30 years, there has been a concerted campaign to eradicate predatory European foxes, but Dr Dann says other extraordinary conservation efforts have played a part in the baby boom.

He said the Victorian Government agreed to buy back a town for wildlife conservation.

"It was called Summerland Estate, and there were 180 houses there and a motel and a milk bar and ... about 500 developed building blocks," he said.

"The Victorian Government, under Joan Kirner, agreed to lead the purchase of all those blocks and those houses over a 25-year period.

"That was completed in 2010 and, as far as we know, it's the only time a town has been bought for wildlife conservation."

Penguins have annual divorce rate of 18 per cent

In the process of tracking the colony, researchers also discovered the surprisingly "modern" partnering and breeding habits of the little penguin.

Dr Dann says it is now clear they do not mate for life.

"I think it was more our mistake. They looked like they were socially monogamous - we can't tell them apart of course - so most people assumed the same pair was together all the time," he said.

"The divorce rate for penguins is, on average, about 18 per cent a year.

"And it's the females that seem to make up their minds if they're going to go and look for another partner.

"The other curious thing is, during a breeding season, to all intents and purposes, it looks like a pair of penguins are raising offspring.

"But with the advances in genetics we've been able to look at the paternity of a lot of these penguin broods, and 7 per cent of penguin fathers were actually raising offspring that weren't their own."

Topics: conservation, environment, vic

First posted