{"id":394724,"date":"2026-04-24T02:25:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T02:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/394724\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T02:25:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T02:25:17","slug":"nearly-1000-chicks-fledged-at-oamarus-blue-penguin-colony-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/394724\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 1000 chicks fledged at Oamaru’s blue penguin colony"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Two<\/p>\n

\nEnvironmental team lead at \u014camaru’s blue penguin colony Henry Elsom attribute the breeding success to decades of conservation efforts and the breeding season starting early.
\nPhoto: RNZ\n<\/p>\n

It’s been a bumper season for little blue penguins with nearly 1000 chicks fledged at Oamaru’s blue penguin colony.<\/p>\n

That’s up from last year’s 600.<\/p>\n

Environmental team lead Henry Elsom told Checkpoint the penguins were looking “fantastic”.<\/p>\n

“They all seem to be in really really good conditions, so we are hoping its going to be another great breading season on the cards.”<\/p>\n

However, he said a few were looking a bit scruffy because they were going through their molt, meaning they lose all their feathers.<\/p>\n

Elsom said the area was often packed with people hoping to catch a glimpse. He attribute the breeding success to decades of conservation efforts and the breeding season starting early.<\/p>\n

“There was one pair that really stood out… in a good season these penguins will have multiple broods, we had one pair that was a triple brooder, so they produced six chicks in a season and yeah, we had never seen penguins successfully fledge six chicks.”<\/p>\n

He said the breeding season is typically from July through to January.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Environmental team lead at \u014camaru’s blue penguin colony Henry Elsom attribute the breeding success to decades of conservation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,147,406],"class_list":["post-394724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}