One bright, hot sunny day shortly after New Years I went for a walk with my friend around the Wellington coast.
As we admired the blue of the sea and the red of the pōhutukawa we spotted something you don’t expect to see near shore at midday: a kororā (little penguin, also known as the little blue penguin or fairy penguin, although technically those are a slightly different subspecies (?)).
After following it and watching for a while, and meeting another woman (we shall call her Penny) who had been studying it with some concern we realised it definitely wasn’t swimming or acting right.
So what do you do when you spot an injured native animal? Usually you’d call the Department of Conservation, but everyone goes on holiday right after New Years, and we couldn’t get ahold of anyone. The SPCA was also understaffed, as was Wellington City Council, so neither of them could say when they could send someone.
Then Penny’s stepdaughters showed up, and what do you know, I instantly recognised one of them (we’ll call her Verity), and she recognised me. She works for my vets, and saw a lot of me in the last year of Felicity’s life.
(meeting up with people who you know in another context is VERY Wellington!)
Verity had had penguin handling experience, so we came up with a plan. The next time our kororā came very close we’d try to get between it and the open ocean and herd it to shore. But we’d have to get wet.
I discovered that I’m not too old and dignified to strip down to my knickers and a T-shirt by the side of a public road with a small crowd of onlookers if there’s an animal I can help.
I ended up fully swimming and got COMPLETELY soaked, but we managed to push it to shore where I used all my duck wrangling experience to nab it and successfully avoid its very sharp beak.
Verity had a bucket so we popped it in that with some seawater. I climbed back into my clothes, my friend had a spare shirt (bless her!) which I traded my soaked T-shirt for. We covered the bucket with a towel, put the whole thing in my car, and took the little kororā to Kohanga The Nest at the Wellington Zoo.
They told us we had done exactly the right thing (whew!) and any kororā that lets you herd and grab it as easily as we did definitely needs medical attention. They inspected it and discovered it had an injured wing and was severely underweight. The wing is probably why it was swimming in circles.
It will be getting the best possible care at Kohanga, but they did warn us it might have damaged organs from starvation, so a recovery isn’t guaranteed.
But at least it had a much better chance now.
Hopefully we’ll see our little kororā waaaaaaaaay out in the harbour swimming properly again some day, or if not that, it can join the wee group of too-injured-to-release kororā at Wellington Zoo.
Oh my goodness, you have done a mitzvah! This is so amazing, and I truly hope the little penguin pulls through!
thank goodness you and another caring, sensible person were there to assist the little guy. i hope he recovers quickly.
and who knew that duck wrangling skills would turn out to be useful in a completely different context?
What a cute kororā! I’m sure it’s very grateful for its fairy godmothers. 🙂
Oh I bet that water was freezing! Well done!!!
Well done, you! And the little patient looks bright of eye with healthy feathers so I bet it has enough umph to be able to get back on the mend now that it has carers, food and protection. Fairy Godmother has always struck me as a good career goal…
Good Job! Let us know how the little one recovers.
Good Job! Let us know how the little one recovers.
How fortunate that just the right humans wandered by and had a bucket! I hope it’s doing well!