New Zealand: It's Now or Never to Save This Endangered Penguin Headed Towards Extinction

New Zealand's shy yellow-eyed penguin is the rarest penguin in the world. This ancient penguin is also endangered with only 2,000 left. The future of the species looks bleak: Only 18 of 100 penguin chicks survive their first year. 

While the penguins face many threats, there's one threat that the New Zealand government can address now: bycatch. Many penguins are discovered stuck in commercial trawls or drowned in nets. Conservationists like Fergus Sutherland, the caretaker of the Te Rere penguin reserve, are demanding more fishing restrictions to protect the penguins, but like Sutherland explains to The New York Times, “the political lobby of the fishing industry is much stronger than us.” 

Lend your voice to the cause by signing and sharing this petition demanding more penguin protection and more fishing restrictions. We have to be louder than New Zealand's fishing lobby or face the deafening silence of the yellow-eyed penguin's extinction.


Photo Credit: Matt Binns