Sunday 10 March 2013

I thought my kid would be able to do that...

Last night my sister and I took our respective little boys to Granite Island to see the fairy penguins at dusk.  Well, as much as a 2 year old and 5 month old will cooperate with that plan.

Visiting the island to see the penguins was a stock-standard of our childhood and school camps.  And the penguins were everywhere.  In fact one of my best friends and I spoke for the first time on the bus on the way back to our accommodation after the visit our class made for our Year 8 'get to know you' camp (for US readers, year 8 is the first year of high school in South Australia).

So N and I were expecting to see the hundreds of them that you used to see when we were kids.

I had heard numbers were in trouble, but was gobsmacked to hear they're down to 26 birds!!

Down from 2000 birds around ten years ago.

As J was not a happy camper while the guide was filling us in, so I didn't really hear the reasons, but apparently one main one is there has been an explosion of seal numbers.  And fairy penguins are quite yummy to seals.

On the drive home, N and I were saying we thought  this is one of those things we'd always be able to do with our kids at any time - turns out we may not be able to.

2 comments:

  1. It is amazing how fast a strong animal population can be destroyed. I saw a report the other day about how 2/3 of the world's polar bears will be gone by 2050.

    I looked up the Granite Island site. Apparently there is a population of around 2000 on West Island, which is much smaller than Granite Island? And it is thought that the primary cause is feral animals and disturbances by humans.

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  2. So sad! I remember seeing them when I was there in 1999, they are so cute.

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