The Blue Penguin Craze

By Dylan Buchanan, 10 years old.

I’ve been searching for Little Blues for almost four years now.
The Little Blues are my favourite animal and when I’m older I want to work with them. Working with Little Blues is my dream job. My mum has been helping me try to fulfil my dream. She has reached out to some organisations that work with Little Blues to try and help me find the perfect locations to spot my favourite animal in their natural environment. Unfortunately, it was never the right time of year, I was too young (to help with penguin monitoring) or they just couldn’t do it.
Luckily, the nice people at the New Zealand Penguin Institute said they needed more people who want to be Little Blue scientists, so it was a good thing I wanted to work with them.

Dylan at Russell Wharf

When we went to Nelson, one night mum took me to Kaiteriteri Beach to see if we could see the Little Blues coming in. Sadly, we didn’t see any because it was the end of summer, and it was the moulting season. In the first week of the July school holidays we went to Paihia, New Zealand and on Wednesday we went on a boat cruise to hopefully see Little Blues… and we did. When I first saw them, I froze and couldn’t speak because I was so excited. It was my favourite part of the holiday by far.
My other dream is to take a couple steps forward and interact with penguins. I plan to talk to some penguin rescue centres to see if I can volunteer for a day and I would really like to meet Mena the penguin detection dog and his owner (Mena sniffs out Little Blues so they can save them) and I would like to find out more about the work they do.

Western Bay Wildlife Trust, Mt Maunganui

I would love to visit the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony or Blue Penguins Pukekura, so that I can see these little guys waddle into shore. All of these are located in the South Island, so I will have to work really hard at home doing chores to try and convince Mum and Dad to take me there.
For my birthday this year I got to “adopt” a Little Blue through the Western Bay Wildlife Trust in Mt Maunganui. Her name is Nola. My next dream is to fundraise and “adopt” all the Little Blues living in Mt Maunganui. The next one will be Nigel who is Nola’s partner. I’m going to adopt all of you Little Blues so watch out.
If you too want to adopt a Little Blue or donate, you can visit the websites of these organisations and help save these endangered seabirds.

Dylan at Kaiteriteri

Thank you Dylan for sharing your amazing story. Your passion for little penguins will take you far and they will be better off for it. You are truly a Professor Penguin in-the-making. We wish you all the best for your endeavours.

Linda and Larry, Tasman Bay Blue Penguin Trust.