Yellow-eyed penguin (hoiho) population and tracking project

Download the reports

• Hoiho Tracking February 2020 (PDF, 2,500 K)
• Hoiho Tracking January 2020 (PDF, 1,800 K)
• Hoiho Tracking December 2019 (PDF, 2,500 K)
• Hoiho Tracking November 2019 (PDF, 1,500 K)
• Hoiho Tracking October 2019 (PDF, 167 K)
• Hoiho Tracking September 2019 (PDF, 663 K)
• Hoiho Tracking August 2019 (PDF, 763 K)
• Hoiho Tracking July 2019 (PDF, 589 K)
• Hoiho Tracking June 2019 (PDF, 1,500 K)
• Hoiho Tracking May 2019 (PDF, 290 K)
• Hoiho Tracking April 2019 (PDF, 2,700 K)
• Hoiho Tracking March 2019 (PDF, 2,300 K)
• Hoiho Tracking February 2019 (PDF, 509 K)
• Hoiho Tracking January 2019 (PDF, 524 K)

Summary 

Hoiho (yellow-eyed penguins) are listed as Endangered in both the NZ Threat classification and with the IUCN. They face a range of threats, both marine and terrestrial, and recent poor breeding success and disease events at some colonies have highlighted the precarious nature of hoiho (Ellenberg & Mattern 2012; Webster 2018). 

Direct fishing mortality, particularly in setnets, along with indirect effects of habitat modification and reduction of prey availability adversely affect hoiho, particularly on the mainland, Rakiura and Whenua Hou populations.

Key knowledge gaps lie in having representative tracking data over all sites and life stages to better understand foraging behaviour and fisheries overlap, and the site-specific identification of prey items to determine drivers for differing breeding success, animal condition and disease susceptibility.