What New Zealand’s Smallest Penguin Reveals About a Warming World
We found ourselves clinging to a cliff’s edge in our camouflage clothing, as if trying to vanish into the wind itself. The storms were closing in, while waves hammered the rocks below, and night was approaching fast. While the thrill of adverse weather wasn’t what brought us here—though the conditions delivered that in spades—we had come to track the smallest penguin in the world, and to better understand what its fight to survive might reveal about the climate crisis unfolding just offshore.
Pōhatu, also known as Flea Bay, is tucked into a rugged stretch of the Banks Peninsula on New Zealand’s South Island. This semi-remote area is home to volcanic cliffs, heat-retaining soils, and steep coastal farmland that backs straight into the ocean. It’s a place with deep roots—once cultivated by Māori communities growing kūmara (sweet potatoes), now known as both a regenerative sheep farm and the site of the largest remaining mainland colony of little blue penguins, or kororā.
(Little blue penguin chicks of New Zealand. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
The blend of working land and wild sanctuary is what makes Pōhatu so starkly different. It’s a place where conservation and agriculture share space, where daily decisions about soil, stock, and conscious exploration shape the future of the seabirds that nest underfoot. And it’s where Dr. Rachel Hickcox, spatial ecologist, field scientist and head scientist at the Helps Pōhatu Conservation Trust, is leading one of the most detailed climate-linked seabird studies in the country.
Rachel first came to the Banks Peninsula while working on her PhD, studying the endangered yellow-eyed penguin—another native species hit hard by changing sea temperatures and disease. At the time, scientific attention to little penguins was scattered, and long-term studies were sparse. But after connecting with the Helps family, who own and steward the land at Pōhatu, Rachel saw potential in the local colony.
(Pōhatu from the shoreline. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
The Helps had already spent decades protecting the penguins from land-based threats like predators and wandering dogs, and had begun offering guided tours to fund their conservation work. What they hadn’t yet developed was a long-term dataset that could track how these seabirds were responding to environmental pressures over time.
Together, they built a hands-on, tech-powered monitoring program that now blends field science with tourism, volunteer support, and real-time data collection. Each week, Rachel and her team climb across the steep hillsides of Pōhatu to check over 200 nest boxes, scan microchips, weigh birds, and record their findings. It’s hands-on work that can often get muddy and rather smelly, yet requires constant attention. And it’s exactly the kind of field-based continuity that climate science needs more of.
While we were drawn here initially by our love of penguins, what we left with was a newfound respect and admiration for the systems in place to protect them. To understand what climate change looks like on the ground, you have to go to places where even small changes are visible and can be measured. The impacts are here presently, and already have begun changing the rhythms of life for the species that call this coastline home. While following Rachel in the field, she explained what’s at stake and what’s being done to protect a surprisingly resilient bird that’s acting as the face of a changing climate in New Zealand.
(Meeting and shadowing Dr. Rachel Hickcox. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
Andi: Let’s start with the obvious: what exactly is a little blue penguin, and why are they important?
Rachel: Little blue penguins, or kororā, are the smallest penguin species in the world—just over 30-35 centimeters tall and around a kilogram in weight. Despite their size, they’re remarkably tough. They nest along coastlines in New Zealand and southern Australia, and have adapted to life both at sea and on land. In the water, they’re efficient hunters, sometimes diving over 50 meters deep. On land, they’re awkward but determined, often trekking long distances up cliffs to reach their nests.
What makes them important is that they’re a strong indicator species. Because they rely on both marine and terrestrial environments, they reflect changes in both systems—everything from ocean temperature shifts to predator pressure on land. If you want to understand the health of a coastal ecosystem, little penguins are a great place to start.
(The research team weighs a little blue penguin. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
Andi: They really are quite awkward and cute all at the same time! Here at Pōhatu, you’ve been studying a specific population. What makes this place and this colony unique?
Rachel: Yes, they really are, which is why we love them here! Pōhatu is one of the last strongholds for mainland kororā in New Zealand. Most other colonies have declined or disappeared due to predation, human disruption, and habitat loss. But here, because of the Helps family’s long-term protection efforts, the population has survived, and in fact, grown. We’re talking about over 900 breeding pairs, which is significant.
What’s also unique is the presence of a rare regional variant called the white-flippered penguin, found only in Canterbury. Some birds here show those same traits—white-edged flippers and distinctive markings—which gives us a golden opportunity to study this genetic mix. Beyond that, the landscape here is critical. The nesting sites are naturally protected by steep cliffs and dense vegetation, and the farm is managed regeneratively, so there’s no conflict between land use and conservation. We’re working in an integrated system, which is a true differentiator.
(Meeting Shireen Helps who oversees and owns the Pōhatu property. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
Andi: You’ve mentioned that these birds are especially vulnerable to changes in climate. Can you break down how that’s showing up?
Rachel: Sure. We’re seeing it in a few key ways. First is chick survival. In years with marine heatwaves or poor ocean conditions, adult penguins struggle to find food. When that happens, they’ll often abandon chicks to conserve energy. It’s brutal, but biologically strategic—a healthy adult can breed again next year. But it means low fledging success in tough years.
Second is foraging distance. We’ve tracked birds traveling more than 150 kilometers during incubation, which is a sign that fish stocks are moving further offshore or becoming patchier. When one parent has to go that far, the other stays behind to guard the nest longer, which creates stress on both ends.
(Researchers on Rachel’s team working with little blue penguins. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
And third, the variability itself is increasing. We're seeing bigger differences from year to year, which makes planning and prediction harder. In a stable system, we’d expect some fluctuation. But what we’re seeing now is increasingly unpredictable.
Andi: You’re collecting a ton of data—microchipping, tracking, measuring. What does all that effort actually help you understand in the bigger picture?
Rachel: It’s about building a baseline. We’re trying to understand how many penguins there are, how well they’re doing over time, and what’s changing year to year. Every microchip scan, every weight recorded, every foraging trip mapped adds to a dataset that helps us answer key questions: Are chicks surviving to adulthood? Are the same birds coming back to breed? Is the colony growing or shrinking?
(Conducting a beak measurement on a little blue penguin. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
We use GPS tags to track how far the birds go to feed, which tells us about changes in ocean productivity. We also monitor nest sites closely to see how breeding success fluctuates with temperature and storm events. Over time, those patterns start to reveal themselves.
That kind of long-term monitoring is what allows us to connect dots between climate events and biological responses. Without that continuity, you’re just guessing. This colony gives us a special opportunity to track a known-age population in real time, in the context of a rapidly shifting climate.
Andi: It’s not just science happening here though. There’s also tourism. How does that fit into the conservation strategy?
Rachel: It’s absolutely essential. The guided tours at Pōhatu Penguins—started by the Helps family—are what help fund the work. Every visitor fee goes directly into conservation: paying field staff, maintaining nest boxes, buying equipment, supporting research permits. Without that, this level of monitoring just wouldn’t be possible.
(The Pōhatu property is now closed to the public unless you take a guided tour with Pōhatu Penguins. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
But beyond the funding, responsible tourism also creates awareness. When people see these penguins in their natural habitat—when they watch one trip over a root, tumble, and just keep going—it strikes a chord. People can’t help but fall even more in love with them! It personalizes the science and climate conversation. And we do it in a way that minimizes impact. For example, we keep strict distance rules and we only allow for small group tours. It’s all designed to protect the birds while letting people connect.
Andi: You’re leading a team, designing a research program, running fieldwork in rough conditions—and doing it all in a mixed-use landscape. What has your experience been like as a woman in climate science?
Rachel: It’s a mixed bag. In the field, what matters is competence. You’re wet, cold, trying to keep a penguin calm while collecting data in 60-kilometer winds. It doesn’t leave much room for ego. But in broader systems, there’s still a gap. Women are underrepresented in senior ecological roles, in funding decisions, and in long-term project leadership. I’ve been fortunate to work with people like the Helps family who’ve supported and trusted the science. But it shouldn’t rely on luck or personality.
(The research team is preparing for a survey around the Banks Peninsula. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
That’s why visibility matters. The more we show women leading credible, data-driven conservation work, the more it shifts perceptions. While it’s important to have a reliable team doing this work no matter the gender, what really matters is how it gets done. This project is built on structure, consistency, and care. And that’s a leadership model that works for us here.
Andi: Zooming out, why should people outside of New Zealand care about what’s happening here at Pōhatu?
Rachel: Because what we’re seeing here isn’t isolated. The pressures on this penguin colony—warming seas, shifting prey causing penguins to forage further out to sea for food, habitat conflict—are showing up across species and geographies. Little penguins just give us an unusually clear lens. They reproduce faster than most seabirds, so their populations respond quickly to stress. That makes them ideal climate barometers.
(Little blue penguin monitoring with Rachel’s team. Photo Credit: Adam Moore)
But more importantly, this place is proof that local action works. We’re far from being a government-funded mega project. We’re a small team with boots in the mud, leveraging tourism, tech, and community science to hold the line. If this model can work on a cliffside farm in rural New Zealand, versions of it can work elsewhere, too. We just need to support people doing the work, and to listen to the data too.
Andi: If there’s one thing you wish more people understood about climate and wildlife, what would it be?
Rachel: That resilience has its limits. These penguins are adaptable, but they can’t do it all at once. They’re already navigating introduced predators, increasing storms, changing food webs, and unpredictable seasons. Climate change can’t be looked at as one problem, rather it needs to be seen as a cascade. And without monitoring, we don’t always see the tipping points until they’re behind us. That’s why this work matters. While it might look like we’re trying to “save” one species, this work is much broader than that. We’re watching extremely closely to know when and how ecosystems are starting to break down. And hopefully, acting before it’s too late.
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As Told To: Andi Cross | Photography By: Adam Moore | Support From: Pōhatu Penguins, Helps Pōhatu Conservation Trust
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SHE Changes Climate collaborates with the Edges of Earth Expedition, a woman-led team dedicated to highlighting impactful stories from the environmental frontlines. This partnership focuses on amplifying the voices of women who are pioneering positive change in some of the world’s most vulnerable coastal and marine environments, many of whose stories have gone untold.