The Penguin colonyBy DON KNOWLERRed Chapel Beach, within the sound on a still summer's night of the chimes of the Hobart Town Clock, has residents who go about their business in a quiet undemonstrative way, in keeping with the fashionable suburb of Sandy Bay. The residents, in fact, have been so unobtrusive over the years that their presence has largely gone unnoticed, except perhaps by a handful of nosey neighbours keen to observe their lifestyle in a corner of the bustling city where sea melds with beach, and beach with gardens of wattle and pine bark. It took an act of savagery last year to alert the people of Hobart, and those living in a wider circle around the River Derwent estuary, that they shared their city with several colonies of the world's smallest penguin species, the fairy or little penguin (Eudyptula minor). A dog killed two penguins in the small Red Chapel Beach colony and Hobart's best-kept secret was out. The secret was so closely guarded that I, as the birdwatching columnist of The Mercury, did not even know about it and during the four years I had lived in Tasmania I had taken a three-hour drive to Bicheno on the island's East Coast for my penguin fix. But perhaps I should have just asked. I might have discovered from the Nature Conservation Branch of the state government's Department of the Environment that there are in fact several fairy penguin colonies in the Derwent estuary, the biggest at another suburban setting, Baronia Beach at Kingston 10 kilometres to the south of Hobart. I specialise in my writing on urban wildlife, and the penguin story serves as an example of what can be found in Australia's cities, especially those on the coast, if we only look. The plight of Hobart's penguins also gave me a new focus on the Derwent estuary, and I began to see its beaches, mudflats and wetlands as a microcosm of the threats and challenges facing our waterbirds against the tide of human expansion in coastal environments. As on the Australian mainland, birds in Tasmania nesting on beaches or in the shingle and scrub behind them are at risk, including the little penguin. Although the Penguin Parade on Phillip Island in Victoria wins the public relations stakes when it comes to promoting the little penguin, Tasmanians jealously like to claim the penguin as their own. Doesn't the state have a town called Penguin, complete with rubbish bins with penguin motifs? And isn't Tasmania home to 63 per cent of the estimated Australian penguin population of 470,000 birds? In the relatively heavily populated south-east of Tasmania, within the Derwent estuary and on the Southern Ocean coastline, the future is not as bright for the little penguins as in towns - like Bicheno - actively promoting and conserving penguins for tourism. Researcher Caryn Stevenson, when she set out to study penguin preferences for breeding habitat two years ago, found penguins had vanished from four of the 12 colonies on her list for study. One of these colonies, at Marion Bay on the coast, was once home to 500 breeding pairs. The research into penguins, and their apparent decline in numbers, is still ongoing and anecdotal evidence suggests that along with general disturbance by beach-users, and particularly their dogs, the widespread use of gill-nets by recreational fishermen is a major cause of penguin mortality, trapped penguins being drowned in the nets. Tasmania is the only state or territory where recreational gill-netting is still permitted and most birdwatchers keen on waterbirds have stories to tell of finding seabird victims of the nets, one birder last year discovering 18 penguins discarded near a boat-ramp. The chimes of the Post Office Clock where ringing out in the distance when I walked to Red Chapel Beach from my home earlier this year in the hope of spotting penguins coming ashore at dusk. Just 10 kilometres south a dog was running amok at Baronia Bay, tearing nine penguins to pieces - half of the River Derwent's largest colony. Donald Knowler, The Mercury's bird-watching columnist and author of Dancing on the Edge of the World, wrote this for the latest edition of Birds Australia's magazine, Wingspan.
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