Where's Snares?
The Snares Islands are a tiny group of subantarctic islands off the south coast of the south island of New Zealand, famous for absolutely nothing. I had never heard of them before this week. But they are home to a subspecies of penguin - the Snares Island Crested - which, as it turns out, is what we rescued at Sandfly Bay on Saturday night.
After being picked up by the Deptartment of Conservation (DOC), our little bird was taken to a penguin rehabilitation hospital further up the peninsula. Penguin Place has a large breeding colony of Yellow-Eyed penguins (the same kind we normally have at Sandfly), and has built a series of camouflaged underground bunkers from which to view them up close. For $45, you get a 90 minute tour of the colony, which we often send people to from Sandfly if they haven't managed to get a good look at any penguins on our beach. They also run a hospital with a full time vet, which is good news for any distressed birds in this area (including ours).
It was really nice of the staff at Penguin Place to let us in to see the hospital even though we didn't pay for the tour. They certainly didn't have to. It's a medium-sized enclosure outside, with a nice deep pool for swimming, plants to hide under, and (today) lots of sun to bask in. And it was FULL of birds, mostly Yellow-Eyeds, but also a pair of Snares Islands (ours and one someone else recently brought in), and a very beat-up looking Fiordland that looked as if it had tangled with a fishing line and lost. They said most of these birds were just having a bad moult - not enough squid around to fatten them up before their feathers started coming out. But they do also get birds with bites (shark, sea lion...), or who've been caught in nets. And they fund it all from the proceeds of their colony tours, which makes me feel a lot better about sending people out there for them.
Our penguin turns out to be a little female, badly underweight but otherwise in good condition. She is already hardly recognizeable from the pathetic creature we pulled off the beach 6 nights ago, the one with so many missing feathers and no spark at all. Now most of her new feathers are in and she's sleek and black and shiny. And though the bones in her chest are still visible, she is bright and alert and wanders around the enclosure. The keeper said that she shouldn't have any trouble on release, after a few more weeks of fattening up at the hospital. Yay! So great to see her doing so well.
After being picked up by the Deptartment of Conservation (DOC), our little bird was taken to a penguin rehabilitation hospital further up the peninsula. Penguin Place has a large breeding colony of Yellow-Eyed penguins (the same kind we normally have at Sandfly), and has built a series of camouflaged underground bunkers from which to view them up close. For $45, you get a 90 minute tour of the colony, which we often send people to from Sandfly if they haven't managed to get a good look at any penguins on our beach. They also run a hospital with a full time vet, which is good news for any distressed birds in this area (including ours).
It was really nice of the staff at Penguin Place to let us in to see the hospital even though we didn't pay for the tour. They certainly didn't have to. It's a medium-sized enclosure outside, with a nice deep pool for swimming, plants to hide under, and (today) lots of sun to bask in. And it was FULL of birds, mostly Yellow-Eyeds, but also a pair of Snares Islands (ours and one someone else recently brought in), and a very beat-up looking Fiordland that looked as if it had tangled with a fishing line and lost. They said most of these birds were just having a bad moult - not enough squid around to fatten them up before their feathers started coming out. But they do also get birds with bites (shark, sea lion...), or who've been caught in nets. And they fund it all from the proceeds of their colony tours, which makes me feel a lot better about sending people out there for them.
Our penguin turns out to be a little female, badly underweight but otherwise in good condition. She is already hardly recognizeable from the pathetic creature we pulled off the beach 6 nights ago, the one with so many missing feathers and no spark at all. Now most of her new feathers are in and she's sleek and black and shiny. And though the bones in her chest are still visible, she is bright and alert and wanders around the enclosure. The keeper said that she shouldn't have any trouble on release, after a few more weeks of fattening up at the hospital. Yay! So great to see her doing so well.
posted by Roberta | 1:44 PM
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