AN extinct colony of little penguins is being reestablished near Eden in New South Wales 30 years on after a brand-new chick hatched there for the first time since 1993.
According to a Newsweek article by science reporter Jess Thomson, the chick was found to have been born near Eagles Claw Nature Reserve in Eden recently after a breeding pair returned to the area after decades of the species being decimated by predators such as foxes and dogs.
“Little penguins, the smallest of all penguin species, are a common breeding seabird along the southern coasts of Australia and also the South Island of New Zealand," Nicholas Carlile, a senior research scientist at the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, told Newsweek.
So, is the reestablishment of a penguin colony a threat to Phillip Island.
Err no, not yet at least.
Phillip Island is home to Australia’s largest colony of little penguins with upwards of 32,000 penguins living on Summerland Peninsula and as many as 5400 individuals crossing the beach at dusk at the end of any given day.
But, like Eden, Phillip Island’s colony has also been ravaged by predators, especially foxes, with numbers falling to as low as 12,000 in the 1980s before extensive conservation and research efforts saved the day, work that still continues today.
As late as July last year, after a two-month fox hunt, the only known fox on the Island was caught and destroyed by Phillip Island Nature Parks staff, after killing chickens at a local farm, although it is not known if the fox killed any penguins.
The famous Phillip Island Penguin Parade is one of the pillars of the Island’s $850 million-a-year tourism sector, but it doesn’t look like losing the mantle anytime soon, despite reports of Eden getting its penguins back.
"The town of Eden boasted a penguin population of more than 20 pairs up until the early 1990s,” according to Mr Carlisle, “when the dual impacts of predation, by feral European fox and domestic dogs, and nest inundation from storms, rendered the colony extinct.”
The only surviving coastal population in NSW, in the Sydney suburb of Manly, has been maintained through significant effort by conservation managers over the last 20 years."
