Welcome to ecocentre little penguins introduction

An Urban Colony

Bob Palfrey, a local mariner, reckons he started hearing penguins in St Kilda harbour in 1956, not long after a breakwater was built to provide shelter for yachts competing in the Melbourne Olympics.

St Kilda is just 5 kilometres due south of the Central Business District of Victoria's capital - Melbourne. St Kilda is one of Victoria's most densely populated suburbs and a busy tourist destination. Incredibly, Little Penguins have made St Kilda harbour their home.

The Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor), also known as the Fairy Penguin, is the smallest of the penguin family. It is an aquatic animal, native to New Zealand and southern Australia, which only comes ashore to breed and moult.

Important Note

Although these little penguins have chosen an urban "home", they are still wild animals, dependent on their instincts to survive. Too much interaction with humans may diminish a penguin's ability to survive in the wild. For this reason, and the savage cuts inflicted by a penguin's sharp beak, only people with a permit to handle wildlife are permitted to handle them!

How Little Penguins Came to St Kilda

There are no documented records of breeding penguin colonies in Port Phillip Bay prior to the St Kilda colony. However, it is possible that small colonies may have existed in relatively isolated places before human development and introduced predators wiped them out.

The President of the Victorian Naturalists reported a penguin chasing fish in the mouth of Kororoit Creek in 1911. Long-term residents of Altona recall penguins coming in an out of burrows near the mouth of the Laverton Creek.

A large colony of about 20,000 Little Penguins live in the sand hills at Phillip Island. Every year half a million visitors watch the famous "Penguin Parade" at dusk. Many birds in the ‘parade’ will be returning from Port Philip Bay.

In winter Phillip Island penguins travel the 120 kilometres to Port Phillip Bay to feed. This is a round trip of 3 days.

The discovery at St Kilda of penguins that had been banded at Phillip Island confirms that on at least a couple of occasions Phillip Island penguins found the St Kilda breakwater and took up residence.

In 1974 two nesting pairs of Little Penguins were recorded at St Kilda. By 1986 a colony of about 100 birds had established itself in the outer two thirds of the breakwater.

A conservative estimate for the year 2000 put the size of the colony at more than 120 Little Penguins. Based on a formula developed by Phillip Island Penguin Parade scientists the number of birds at St Kilda now is about 540.

The rock structure of the breakwater makes the St Kilda penguins relatively hard to catch or even see while they’re on land. So estimating the size of the colony is a process of educated guesswork. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that penguins don’t necessarily return to land each day. They may spend weeks or even months at sea.