New Zealand<\/a> and the sub-Antarctic region, but the focus of this annual voyage is on the declining species that inhabits remote Fiordland, New Zealand\u2019s largest national park, which is Unesco heritage listed.<\/p>\nUntil German-born Mattern and his wife, Ursula Ellenberg, founded the volunteer research project in 2014, almost nothing was known about Fiordland\u2019s tawaki, which stands half a metre tall, and features prominent yellow eyebrows.<\/p>\n
\u201cTawaki are a ghost,\u201d Mattern says of the penguin\u2019s enigmatic behaviour.<\/p>\n
But \u201cthey are the most amazing penguin species \u2026 They do not fit any penguin mould. What we know about penguins, you throw it all out of the window.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike most penguins, the Fiordland tawaki do not breed in colonies, preferring instead to build single burrows deep in dense rainforest, sometimes at high elevations. While some other species can nest in forests, tawaki are unique because they nest exclusively in forests, Mattern says, describing them as \u201cproper jungle penguins\u201d.<\/p>\n
Its hunting habits are also unusual. Some groups fish entirely within the fjords, while others hunt in the ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think you have them nailed down, you go to a different fjord, and they show behaviour that just does not conform to any of the ideas you have developed so far,\u201d Mattern says.<\/p>\n
\u2018Absolutely zero sense\u2019<\/p>\n
Tawaki have also become infamous among scientists for their baffling journey to feed before they go through their annual \u201ccatastrophic moult\u201d \u2013 the scientific term for when animals shed and replace all their feathers in one go.<\/p>\n
All penguins moult after breeding season and before they do, they eat vast quantities of food to put on weight. Despite an abundance of food around the fjords in December (when breeding season ends), tawaki undertake a 5,000 to 7,000km return trip to the sub-Antarctic region to feed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese emaciated tawaki, that have just said goodbye to their chicks, hop in the water and travel halfway to Antarctica, which makes absolutely zero sense because there should be more than enough food in the water just outside their breeding area,\u201d Mattern says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are running a marathon, while trying to gain weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mattern believes tawaki are likely acting on ancient instinct, heading to grounds where all other crested penguin species feed.<\/p>\n
The Tawaki Project is funded by public donations and international grants, and supported by local volunteers, such as<\/p>\n
Richard Abernathy, the owner of tourism company Fiordland Expeditions, who donates his boat and time to the expedition for several weeks a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince 2018, we\u2019ve been chasing penguins all over Fiordland,\u201d says Abernathy whose ability to find nests in surprising places has earned him the nickname \u201csniffer dog\u201d.<\/p>\n
Together, their efforts have \u201cshed light on the most understudied species\u201d in New Zealand, Mattern says.<\/p>\n
In 2020, the International Union for Conservation<\/a> of Nature\u2019s Red List moved tawaki up in status from \u201cvulnerable\u201d to \u201cnear-threatened\u201d because the researchers were able to develop a better picture of their populations, estimated to be in the region of 12,00 to 15,000 mature birds.<\/p>\nBut risks remain, including from commercial fishing practices.<\/p>\n
\u201c[We\u2019re] looking at survival rates \u2026 to determine whether the population is stable,\u201d says Mattern.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019re going down, then we need to kick into gear to improve the situation for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deep in the misty fjords of New Zealand\u2019s South Island, a team of researchers is trying to catch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-632966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632966","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=632966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}