An Oamaru little blue penguin (koror\u0101) died from its injuries after reportedly being hit by a vehicle in a “shockingly senseless act” on the town’s waterfront.<\/p>\n
The Department of Conservation and police are investigating the death of the\u00a0koror\u0101 on Sunday, September 28.<\/p>\n
It is understood a number of vehicles were at The Esplanade that evening and there were reports of anti-social behaviour.<\/p>\n
A witness reported “suspicious vehicle activity” between 8.30pm and 9.30pm that night, Doc said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“The witness retrieved the injured penguin, which was initially alive, but died soon after.”<\/p>\n
Doc \u014ctepoti\/Dunedin operations manager Gabe Davies said they were particularly interested in video, CCTV or mobile phone footage which could help determine what happened and provide evidence for a potential prosecution under the Wildlife Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cKoror\u0101 are such precious birds and are the world\u2019s smallest penguins. The death of this penguin appears to be a shockingly senseless act.<\/p>\n
“They live and nest so close to an urban environment and are a popular tourist attraction. They are threatened and in decline and should be protected by the public and not put further at risk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The maximum penalty for killing a protected species like the koror\u0101 is two years’ imprisonment, a fine of $100,000 or both.<\/p>\n
– Allied Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Oamaru little blue penguin (koror\u0101) died from its injuries after reportedly being hit by a vehicle in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-63256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63256","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=63256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}