Early on Wednesday 28 October, TawakiCam went dark. The last image it sent us, at 6:56am (the camera ignores daylight savings), shows the erect-crested penguin colony on the Antipodes Islands in a full gale, with the females tucked down on their nests. The culprit is a single small part: the power converter for the satellite...
Penguins go bush! On Saturday 24 October, Thomas joined Kate Rodger on RNZ National’s Saturday Morning to talk about tawaki, New Zealand’s jungle penguins. In a lively 20 minutes, Kate and Thomas covered why tawaki are so wary of humans, their unusual two-egg strategy, why they’re faring better than hoiho, and their marathon pre-moult journeys...
The first complete census of the Erect-crested penguin reveals two populations on opposite trajectories – and a problem for how the species’ threat status is assessed. The Erect-crested penguin (Eudyptes sclateri) is one of the world’s least known penguins. It breeds only on two remote subantarctic island groups south-east of New Zealand, the Bounty Islands...
Tawaki make international headlines On 17 October 2026, The Guardian published a feature on tawaki and our work in Fiordland: Uncovering the secrets of New Zealand’s elusive ‘jungle penguins’, by Eva Corlett with photography by Derek Morrison. It is great to see these remarkable birds reach a global audience, and we thank everyone involved. The...
At 13:08 hrs on 9 September 2026, the first Erect-crested penguin of the season stepped back into frame on the Anchorage Bay study platform, live on TawakiCam. After months of empty rock and quiet surf, it’s the moment the whole team – and quite a few of you watching from home – has been waiting...
Last week, the Tawaki Project packed its bags for Phillip Island / Milawul in Australia, host of the 12th International Penguin Conference (IPC12). Held at the newly opened Berninneit cultural centre in Cowes from 31 August to 4 September, the conference drew more than 200 penguin researchers and conservationists from around the world… the biggest...
The Tawaki Project has been selected by Google.org as a case study showcasing how the Google for Nonprofits programme is helping small organisations amplify their impact. The feature, written by Maggie Johnson, Global Head of Google.org, and published on the official Google blog on 28 July 2026, highlights how we use Google Workspace and the...
The Tawaki Project has been named a finalist in the 2026 Canon Oceania Grants Programme, in the Environment category! The Canon Oceania Grants Programme has supported 130 community organisations across Australia and New Zealand over the past 20 years, providing technology and funding to organisations making meaningful contributions to their communities. This year’s programme offered...
Last September, we installed the second transponder gate (AWMS, or “Automated Wildlife Monitoring System”) at a tawaki cave breeding colony we call “The Hive.” Located in central Fiordland, this colony is ideal for automated monitoring like the system we’ve been running in Milford Sound since 2019: 25+ pairs breed together in a sea cave with...
The Tawaki Project’s Bounty-Antipodes Expedition 2025/26 ran from 25 November 2025 to 24 February 2026, taking the research team to two of New Zealand’s most remote subantarctic outposts – the Bounty Islands and Antipodes Island. Aboard the research vessel Evohe, the team conducted GPS tracking deployments on chick-rearing Erect-crested and Eastern Rockhopper penguins across multiple...
