Keeping penguins fed a big job for wildlife staff

While the numbers of birds being admitted to the Oiled Wildlife Facility has declined recently, keeping the hundreds being held there fed, watered and healthy is still a big task for staff.

Massey wildlife technician Pauline Conayne, who manages much of the wildlife operation’s rosters and logistics, says the focus of the operation has changed.

“We’ve moved from admitting oiled birds and washing them to housing the penguins in purpose-built aviaries,” she says.

The penguins all need to be fed twice daily. “It takes about three hours for each feed. We’re going through more than 160kg of anchovies a day, and all of the penguins have to be hand fed,” she says. “Penguins won’t eat dead fish themselves so it takes time for us to feed them by hand.”

The fish are sourced from overseas as it is the wrong time of year to be buying small fish of this size in New Zealand.

As well as feeding, the birds are also weighed and checked regularly. “We need to keep an eye on every individual and ensure they’re dealing well with captivity.”

The aviaries must also be cleaned daily. “A lot of penguins means a lot of mess, so we take apart the aviaries and wash them out to minimise the health risk,” Ms Conayne says. “The aviaries were designed to be easily pulled apart to make washing them simpler.”

The wildlife response still involves about 50 core staff on site each day. “This is less than we had earlier in the response when we were housing large numbers of oiled birds that needed to be washed,” she says. “We still have the same number of birds, but they have different needs now.”

The facility is still prepared to take hundreds more birds should the need arise, and trained wildlife responders were on-call to return.