Sunday 17th November 2019

doomed without help

​Hello friends and family
This was another roller-coaster week. It began with great promise. Yellow-eyed penguins were voted in as Bird of the year in the Forest and Bird annual competition. This was a great tribute to the vote Hoiho team who ran such a successful campaign. It has had a positive impact for us already!

tourist madness in November

​New Zealand King Salmon will be sponsoring our hospital fish this season. What a huge relief that is! The penguin of the year certainly deserves the best food when in care.
Then on Tuesday morning we found Diphtheria in chicks in both reserves. Yes, 47 chicks had hatched by then, but 9 were infected. This makes the 5th season in a row that we have had this disease in the colony. We were able to save the abandoned eggs from last week.

spring glory

​By Thursday we were treating 20 of the 50 chicks that had hatched, but 2 had died. On Friday we found another 4 sick chicks and yesterday we found 16 more infected chicks and one dead one. 

The tragedy unfolding on the other side of the fence

Currently we have 56 chicks with 11 more eggs yet to hatch. These are the hard yards and the team has decided that I should not be doing the rounds alone, so I will have a helper with me every day for at least the next week.
Have a great week
Rosalie
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