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NZAEE Seaweek Ocean Champion Challenge

Seaweek 2021 is kicking off from Saturday 6 March to Sunday 14 March 2021. It highlights the importance and diversity of life in our marine environments and calls on Kiwis from all walks of life to look after Tangaroa's realm. This year's theme is 'Connecting with our Seas; Toi Moana ~ Toi Tangata - highlighting the diverse connections and interactions we have with the sea. Seaweek have announced the launch of the national Seaweek Ocean Champion Challenge – Moana Toa W...

Help us protect nesting shorebirds, penguins and petrels at the beach this summer

Summer is here and no doubt you're planning to spend some time on our beautiful beaches over the holidays. The Western Bay is home to some really special native birds, Little Blue Penguins, Grey Faced Petrels and our shorebirds all nest in the area and need our help to make sure they survive.Please be aware of our birds this summer, follow the signs about where you can walk your dogs, do not disturb nesting birds and keep your cats inside at night, and both you and our birds can enjoy the beach ...

Love Mauao Clean Up

A huge thank you to everyone that came out today to Love Mauao Clean Up - we really appreciate the effort!It was great to work together with Keep Tauranga Beautiful and Predator Free BOP to make this event happen, and thanks to Projects by Bren for pulling it all together,  We had a great tuen out with 84 wonderful humans getting out and cleaning our coastline to help protect the marine environment and our special local taonga species.We collected just over 63kgs of waste today today and of...

Little Blue Penguin Monitoring Research

Research by Karin Sievwright on Little Blue Penguins at Mount Maunganui Karin has a Bachelor of Science degree with a double major in Ecology and Zoology and has recently completed a Master’s degree in Conservation Biology. Karins Master’s research involved monitoring the post-release survival and reproductive success of oiled little blue penguins (Eudyptula minor) that were rescued and rehabilitated following the 2011 C/V Rena oil spill off the coast of Tauranga. The purpose of her stu...

Grey-faced Petrels hang in there on Mauao

Last week in the petrel colony on Mauao, a small team with handling skills received a good Christmas bonus with four birds found – 3 chicks and an attending adult that had just fed a chick. The adult already had a band on it so we will look into the history of this bird and update you. Photos by Satsuki Takenouchi.Paul CumingPetrel Specialist, Western Bay Wildlife Trust...

Planting for Penguins

Thanks to all our wonderfully devoted community getting stuck in to this event run in conjunction with Tauranga City Council. The penguins and other wildlife will be enjoying a healthier home with lots of low lying plants in the ground and buckets of trash removed. It's such a great chance for us to connect with the passionate people who care for our wildlife, inspiring to see so many young people getting involved and as a collective helping raise awarenes...

Love is in the air

Our penguin ranger and dedicated volunteers have been busy monitoring the penguins over the breeding season. While we are so excited to have eggs, rapidly growing chicks and some happily fledged fighters, unfortunately we've noticed quite a lot of nests no longer in use. The birds have also been susceptible to a predator/s that have found Moturiki Island to be a great hunting ground and preyed upon eggs and chicks. There are numerous other bird bodies scattered about. We are ...

Oi it's an Oi Egg...Oi!

The grey-faced petrel (Oi) colony have utilised their artificial burrows for laying, saving them a whole lot of digging! We hope to be meeting some chicks real soon! Recent work in the petrel colonies included remodelling some of the nest chambers of the study burrows. Birds were beginning to do some remodelling of their own after 19 years with the same colour scheme! One particular pair had burrowed under the wall and extended their burrow beyond the main chamber. ...

Conservation Week tours full of bouncy penguins, squeaky petrels and cutie pie-d shags!

Queen penguin inspired and educated our tour attendees on the Wildlife of Mauao! Our first night was full of petrels squeaking and flying overhead, the sea was a little rough and maxed high tide so the sneaky penguins managed to get to their burrows mostly undetected! They did decide to show off  their bouncy rockhopping skills on the second night. Everybody was melting at the cutie pie pied shag chicks being fed up high in the Pohutuka...

Penguin monitoring by microchip

During the Rena incident, Trustees received training from Massey University’s Wildbase vets. We were kept upskilled during monitoring nights last summer....