Melody the gentoo penguin has cataract removed. Video / Sea Life Kelly Tarlton's
A native penguin was found on a Napier beach, emaciated and unable to move, and is now in rehab.
Rebekah Cuthbert from the National Aquarium said the penguin had no external injuries but limited leg use.
Liv Flynn warned of issues like climate change, rubbish entanglement, and the potential threat of the H5N1 avian virus.
A native penguin found on a Napier beach unable to move is undergoing rehabilitation.
Liv Flynn from Hawke’s Bay Bird and Wildlife Rescue said a member of the public got in contact after finding a little blue penguin/kororā on its back, emaciated, dehydrated and unable to move.
“We knew that’s not normal,” Flynn said.
“Myself, a wildlife officer and our wildlife rehabilitators came down and we managed to find him in the rocks [by the Napier Fishing Club] and we brought him into care.”
After a quick assessment, the team knew something was wrong as it could not use its legs and was not “behaving like a normal penguin would”.
That was when the team applied emergency fluid therapy and took the penguin to the vet. It was then taken to the National Aquarium of New Zealand.
Rebekah Cuthbert, supervisor of birds at the aquarium, said it was difficult to say why the kororā had limited use of its legs as no external injuries were present.
“Vets x-rayed the bird and found no broken bones or dislocations,” Cuthbert said.
“Not being very mobile would have affected its ability to hunt which, in turn, would have caused the emaciation and dehydration.”
The plan now for the kororā was to get its body condition to a better state and see if it regained the use and mobility of its legs, Cuthbert said.
The little blue penguin/kororā on its recovery journey. Photo / Liv Flynn
At this time of year, there were likely to be more penguins on beaches around New Zealand, as they were native and “found all the way around the coast”, she said.
“It is the end of the breeding season and the beginning of the moulting season for penguins so they will be spending more time ashore over the next month or so.”
Flynn said it was common to find sick penguins along the Hawke’s Bay coast in summer, saying a lot of kororā were in “basically starvation mode” when they came to Hawke’s Bay Bird and Wildlife Rescue team.
“When the water gets really warm – [the penguins’] food source dive deeper. Well, the penguins can’t dive that deep, so that’s what they say with global warming and climate change, the fish are going deeper to colder water – the penguins can’t get that far,” Flynn said.
Another real problem facing the kororā was entanglement in discarded rubbish and fishing gear, and being attacked by off-leash dogs.
Cuthbert said picking up rubbish and keeping dogs on a lead around the beach were the simplest ways to keep kororā safe this summer.
However, Flynn said kororā and all sea birds may have a bigger problem coming with the H5N1 avian virus potentially looming over Aotearoa.
“If the public find three or more seabirds dead near each other, our advice is to not go near them, not touch them, keep dogs back and call MPI and let them know the area that they’re in and just report their findings,” Flynn said.
“If they come across a struggling penguin or a struggling bird on the beach, the best thing for those cases is to call DoC and let them know if it’s a native.”
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and spent the last 15 years working in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier. He reports on all stories relevant to residents of the region, along with pieces on art, music, and culture.
