Looking to improve the beach habitat for Little Penguins…Manly Village Public School students Joanne, Claire and Martin hold up sketches of the Shelly Beach habitat. Inset: Little Penguins, pictured on an earlier occasion, when they were released into their natural environment after rehabilitation at the zoo.

Quest to help the little guys (and gals)

By Clare Chenoweth

Manly Village Public School students are on a quest to help the smallest of the world's penguins return to Manly and Shelly beaches for breeding.

The Manly Harbour area is home to the last remaining mainland colony of Little Penguins, also known as Fairy Penguins, in NSW.

During a six week program with Taronga Zoo's Education Department, Manly Village Public School students are learning skills involved in Little Penguin habitat protection and developing materials to tell the community how to help penguins in the area.

The students have been briefed by Taronga's keepers about the threats to penguins and how students can be involved in securing a future for penguins in the Manly community.

The year 5 and 6 students have created penguin rescue diaries. When they visited Shelly Beach on July 30 they looked at the existing habitat, rated the suitability of the surrounds as a penguin habitat and made recommendations to make the site more suitable to the penguins' needs.

The beach audit is part of the Little Penguin Project, developed by Taronga Zoo's Education team and relates to the Department of Education and Training's Environmental Education Policy.

The students will also conduct an Environmental Expo at Taronga Zoo and attending guest speaker presentations by experts from Taronga Zoo's Marine Mammal and Penguin division, local council bush regeneration, National Parks and Wildlife Service and Manly Environment Council.

The project aims to encourage students to educate their communities about sustainable living and to give them a love for and an understanding of wildlife, while providing them with practical ways to be involved in its protection.

Clare Chenoweth is the media relations officer at Taronga Zoo.

For further information

August 2007 contents