Middle Island Little Penguin Monitoring Program: 2013-14 Breeding Season

Middle Island, Warrnambool

The program has been in support of, and worked collaboratively with the Maremma Project, which is run by the Warrnambool City Council, using Maremma guardian dogs to protect the colony from land based predation. To learn more background information on the projects, you can find the link to last year’s project page and archived blogs here.

The continuation of these conservation efforts has truly been a community effort with project supporters including the Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Glenelg Hopkins CMA, Warrnambool Standard, Deakin University, Coastcare, and Powercor, as well as  hundreds of volunteers who have contributed countless hours (a tally of  over 2000 hours to date) to the monitoring program.

Last season Nature Glenelg Trust was fortunate to partner with the WCLG and coordinate the monitoring program. In 2013-14 this partnership will continue, and we would like to invite you to support the program too! To learn more about opportunities to be involved in the Middle Island Little Penguin monitoring program, email Lauren from NGT at .

• Little Penguin Monitoring Season Wrap Up 2013-14 18/03/2014
  The autumn break signals the end of the breeding season for many of our seabirds. With most of the Little Penguins at Middle Island now finished their annual moult, there won’t be much activitity at Middle Island for the months ahead. With our dusk arrival count schedule now complete and only one chick yet to fledge being monitored on ...
• Little Penguin Monitoring outcomes reflect the effect of varying environmental conditions 31/01/2014
  This season has thrown a number of significant challenges at our seabirds of the south eastern coast. As mentioned in previous blogs, a neutral ENSO phase this year has contributed to rough oceanic weather and currents, as well as high sea surface temperatures, resulting in lowered food availability. The prolonged heat wave last week also affected sea temperatures ...
• Sharing our summer shores with marine wildlife 20/12/2013
  The mini-heatwave that has hit south-eastern Australia this week is a fitting welcome to the summer festive season. With many of us flocking to the coast for relief on a hot day, or for a well-earned holiday, it is timely to share some advice about how best to respond to any interactions we may face ...
• Local weather extremes and poor food availability stretching our seabirds 28/11/2013
  It was about a month ago as I walked along Narrawong beach that I came to a standstill…dumbfounded at the sheer number of short-tailed shearwaters littered along the sand. I soon found that I was not alone in my observation. For over a month now, there has continued to be a series of wash-up events of shearwaters ...
• Start to the Little Penguin Monitoring Season at Middle Island welcomes guests from the Mediterranean 13/11/2013
  Spring is well and truly upon us, and it brings extra daylight, sunny weather, and the start of the Little Penguin Monitoring for the 2013-14 season! Many volunteers probably wouldn’t recognise Middle Island and Stingray Bay in the photo below from this Tuesday evening…what a low tide, barely enough to get your ankles wet!! This was ...

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