Hello and welcome to our autumn newsletter.
As you will have read, our dear Kerry-Jayne died on Tuesday, slipping away peacefully before dawn as the shearwaters would have been taking flight. Her absence is filling our thoughts but also inspiring us to maintain her legacy and maintain the effort to protect and conserve threatened seabirds.
This newsletter was prepared before she died and we're sure Kerry-Jayne, as such a hard working and dedicated conservationist, wouldn't want the Trust's efforts to pause while we remember her and her life's work. Kerry-Jayne retired from Lincoln University before usual retirement age because she had so much work to do - writing books including her recent and wonderful 'New Zealand Seabirds - A Natural History', and advocating for seabird conservation. She leaves a huge hole in this work and our lives, and we'll carry on in her name and her memory.
There is a wonderful note on The Tawaki Project website - appreciation from fellow penguin scientist, Dr Thomas Mattern, and a personal story - I cried and laughed and then both together:
https://www.tawaki-project.org/2022/03/29/glide-on-forever-kerry-jayne/
As a tribute to Kerry-Jayne’s memory and her enduring love for the West Coast and all seabirds, her family have chosen the West Coast Penguin Trust for memorial contributions.
A very generous donor has offered to match any donations made in her memory up to $5,000.
Donations can be made via the Trust’s website westcoastpenguintrust.org.nz/donate.
A memorial service will be some way off and details will be announced when they are known.
Before I go on, I need to correct my earlier email - Kerry-Jayne was born in 1949, not 1950 - my sincere apologies for that error.
Deep breath ...
Winter and spring weather must have suited blue penguins on the Coast as we have had a superb breeding season in our monitored colonies near Charleston. I hope the wonderful summer weather on the Coast suited you too.
In this newsletter we report on the breeding success of our blue penguins and present nest box plans that can provide the perfect shelter for future breeding.
We are also delighted to introduce our new Trustee, Suzanne Hills of Barrytown, and we report on the RMA Commissioners' decline of the proposed mining on the Barrytown flats - mining would have created an additional threat to Westland petrels or tāiko there.
Speaking of tāiko, it was sad to read that the wonderful Tāiko Festival has been cancelled for this year. Let's hope things are closer to normal in the coming months.
And speaking of cancelling events due to the pandemic, the Trust made the call not to present a Community Conservation Symposium this year. We are very grateful to those who responded to our survey about a second symposium. There is a clear desire to meet in person and we received some helpful feedback about presentations that would be most useful. We are exploring options and will provide an update soon.
As usual, we're including the DOC hotline so that it's handy in case you come across an injured penguin or any wildlife that seems to be struggling, 0800 DOCHOT (362 468), and do all you can to ensure they are safe from dogs.
Also, if you see or hear about a dead penguin, please let us know using our simple reporting form, ideally with a photograph, so that we can add it to our database - which informs our conservation actions. We are pleased to be helping Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research with a project commissioned by the Waka Kotahi, the NZ Transport Agency, to better understand what mitigations actually work to minimise the risk of vehicles hitting birds - we'll bring news of that in the future.
Thank you again for your continued interest and support, and please feel free to forward this newsletter or any stories - who doesn't love talking about penguins?!
Inger
Manager (Lucy will be back soon)