Little penguin

How it lives

The smallest of all penguins. On land they are active at night, and they come ashore at dusk in small groups called rafts. Pairs are monogamous within a season and share the work of incubating the 1 to 2 eggs for up to 36 days. Chicks fledge after 7 to 8 weeks. Once a year adults stay ashore for about 2 weeks to replace all their feathers, and cannot swim during this moult. Wild birds average about 6.5 years, with up to about 25 years reported.

Where it goes

Little penguins do not migrate far. In the breeding season they mostly stay within about 25 km of the shore and feed within about 20 km of their colony. Banding in Wellington shows that birds seldom move far from home, and many young birds settle just metres from where they were raised.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

The IUCN assessed the species as Least Concern in 2020, with about 469,760 mature individuals and a stable trend. Some authorities treat the Australian form as a separate species, but the IUCN assessment covers it as one. In New Zealand the Department of Conservation lists it as At Risk and Declining, mainly because of predators such as dogs, cats and ferrets, and many colonies are shrinking. Where predators are controlled, populations have held steady or grown. Estimates for Australia are about 110,000 to 190,000 breeding pairs in Tasmania and about 32,000 breeding adults on Phillip Island.