I agree totally with what you say. I came here to Lake Moeraki, South Westland in 1989 to set up the Wilderness Lodge because I was passionate about saving the rainforest and saving Fiordland Crested Penguins, Tawaki. The local policeman Roger Millard described to me finding 30 penguins killed on a nearby beach by a fisherman’s dog while the fisherman was concentrating on his fishing. It seemed that everyone felt it was OK to take their dogs onto the beach in the penguin areas. Under the Wildlife Act an offence wasn’t committed until the penguin was actually dead. We spent many months researching how to get dogs banned from our South Westland coastline. In the end we discovered that if an area becomes a Wildlife Refuge under the 1953 Wildlife Act you can set in place enforceable regulations that ban dogs. It took 4 years and a public process to get this through. There was some aggro from locals and surprisingly from some DOC staff who loved taking their black labradors with them everywhere!. Finally in 1994 we got a Wildlife Refuge established for the two accessible strongholds of Tawaki; Jacksons Bay and the Moeraki coastline. Enforcement was initially hard and we helped DOC with several prosecutions as witnesses to the offences. Eventually the message got out that the ban was serious and was being enforced by the locals. We have had very few problems in recent years.The local community is now very proud that we are the guardians of what many call the world’s rarest penguin, the Tawaki

It is one small way that ordinary people can help save penguins.

Two lessons from this are
1. DOC has to be prepared to be tough. Set clear laws in place, enforce them and be prepared to go to prosecution to uphold them. There is a general gutless attitude prevailing in DOC these days that ‘enforcement is unpopular” therefore they don’t like to do it and fall back on the gutless approach of saying they will put their efforts into education only. It isn’t enough because you talk to lots of the fishermen and people who take their dogs into these colonies and they’ll tell you “My dog wouldn’t harm a flea”…don’t believe it. It only takes a few minutes and lots of penguins will be dead.

2. Why on earth havn’t we got coastal communities throughout NZ who care for their penguins–these are mostly blue penguins–campaigning for more coastal wildlife refuges that prohibit dogs. It is one straighforward and commonsense way we can help the penguins.

Every time I see reports of another group of penguins being killed by dogs I despair. DOC could take the lead and show communities how to get Wildlife Refuges. Maybe Forest and Bird should do it?