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...
TawakiCam (https://tawaki.cam) our long-anticipated live penguin camera that’s now streaming from the remote Antipodes Islands in the New Zealand subantarctic! After more than two and a half years of planning, testing and overcoming setbacks, TawakiCam went live on 17 January 2026 at 12 pm NZST, bringing audiences from around the world closer than ever to...
After a brief but successful visit to the Bounty Islands, our expedition team continued their journey to the ultimate destination: the Antipodes Island group. This marked the fourth visit of our five-year project, so the first glimpse of the islands wrapped in mist was a familiar one. What was also familiar – and frustrating –...
This year’s subantarctic expedition is under way! On the 25th our gear passed biosecurity inspection at the Invercargill quarantine store before we headed to Bluff to load Evohe for departure. By late afternoon we were under way, pushing east along the Southland coast. The following two days were spent at sea in slow, often uncomfortable...
We’re hosting a special two-night voyage into Patea / Doubtful Sound at the height of tawaki (Fiordland penguin) season – a rare chance to experience one of Aotearoa’s wildest fiords and meet one of its most charismatic (and elusive) birds. The trip runs Friday, 31 Oct – Sunday, 2 Nov. On board, you’ll settle into...
