A coastal South Australian council is pleading for state government assistance in protecting what remains of its decimated little penguin colony.

Key points:

  • Victor Harbor council is asking the state government for more help in managing its little penguin colony
  • There are about 20 little penguins left on Granite Island, down from 1,600 in the early 2000s
  • The environment department is developing a Granite Island master plan

Granite Island, off the coast of Victor Harbor, was once home to about 1,600 penguins — a number that has since dwindled to about 20.

The steep population decline has also been noted in other little penguin colonies along the South Australian coast, including about 80 kilometres away on Kangaroo Island.

City of Victor Harbor Mayor Moira Jenkins said action needed to be taken on a broader scale to save the species from extinction.

“A recent census found there were 20 adult penguins this year, and that’s up slightly from 16 in the previous years, so that’s a very positive sign,” Ms Jenkins said.

“There are eggs from this year as well … but the population is very low still.

The little penguin colony on Granite Island had 1,600 birds in the early 2000s.(ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)

Ms Jenkins said although the council and community was passionate about protecting the local colony — which was once a major tourist attraction drawing “about 10,000 people” annually — its management ultimately lay in the hands of the state government.

Baiting for rats and foxes, and a fox gate installed at the start of Granite Island’s causeway, have been deployed by the Department for Environment and Water to protect the colony in the past.

The council will push for more help at a Local Government Association general meeting on April 8, asking the body to lobby the state government about again looking at strategies and management plans around increasing the little penguin population, to save them from extinction.

‘A number of reasons’ for population decline

Two active burrows found on nearby West Island in late 2020 indicated a return of penguins to that spot for the first time in more than seven years.

But Ms Jenkins said although the colony had gone up and down in numbers in recent years, it remained consistently low compared to population counts in the early 2000s.

City of Victor Harbor mayor Moira Jenkins says the community wants to see more action taken on managing the little penguins.(ABC News: Michael Clements)

Island rangers and department representatives have told her the population decline was due to several factors, including global warming causing fish the penguins would normally eat to move further out to sea, and New Zealand fur seals hunting the birds.

And a fox attack on the island about three years ago brought the numbers down significantly.

Future master plan ‘needs conservation outlook’

The council wrote to then-environment minister David Speirs in September “to see what immediate plans the department had for penguin conservation”, but Ms Jenkins did not know what response was received.

About half of Granite Island’s little penguins were killed in a fox attack in 2019.(ABC News)

“We do know that they are in the process of doing a master plan for Granite Island, and hope there will be something in that,” she said.

“We really would like to see that with a conservation outlook in relation to the island’s biodiversity, and the penguins will be part of that — it’s essential that they are.

“We need a strategy that secures the future viability of the population, but we also need to look at the population of little penguins on a much more state-based level.”

A department spokesperson said the Granite Island Visitor Experience Plan was being finalised and would be released in coming months.

“We have worked closely with community and stakeholders to develop the document, and we are encouraged by the interest and enthusiasm for the potential role Granite Island can play in the visitor economy,” the spokesperson said.