Of Penguins and People

Yesterday I drove into Oamaru, which is billed as "The Penguin Capital of New Zealand," due to it's location near blue-eyed and yellow-eyed penguin colonies. I figured that since I had decided to stay in town for a while, I might as well make an effort to see the (blue-eyed) penguins. It's not as easy as you might think, though. First of all, they are only 10" tall (the smallest penguins in the world) which makes them pretty difficult to spot. Second, the majority only swim ashore at a particular time and location each night. So the resourceful Oamaru townsfolk have set up a special blue-eyed penguin viewing area, with bleacher-style seating and narration by a marine biologist.

So, as the sun was setting yesterday evening, I walked from the campground where I was staying down to the viewing area. This turned out to be somewhat of a mistake, since what appeared on the map to be a 15-minute walk turned into a 35-minute trek. Anyways, I got settled in on the bleachers and stared out to sea as the sun disappeared and the coast was enshrouded in fog and mist. Sure enough, at about 9:30 PM, a few tiny blue dots appeared along the shore. The penguins would swim ashore, often flung to and fro by the surf, and hop/waddle onto the rocks. Then they'd stop and congregate for a while, preening and smoothing their feathery coats to make sure they'd be waterproof when they next went out to sea. Finally, they would scale the rocky slope up to a dirt road, crawl through a wire fence designed to keep out terrestrial predators (mainly dogs, cats, and possums), and disappear into the brush.

I watched this spectacle unfold for a while and then, satisfied that I had had an appropriate penguin experience, decided to leave. By this time it was totally dark outside, and the fog and mist, combined with the relative silence (apart from the normal sea sounds), created an eerie scene. As I walked along a coastal road, past the docks, I was occasionally passed by cars carrying other exiting penguin-watchers, mostly tourists from Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan. I was approaching a seaside warehouse when I saw two bright flashes of light illuminate the street. I continued walking, not sure of the source of the flashes, since it was obscured by the building. As I got closer, I saw a man come around the corner of the building, and there was one more flash before he got in a car and drove off.

The scene struck me as sort of weird, so I was cautious as I approached the warehouse. Once I got close, I realized what all the flashes were about: standing stock still, not 10 feet away from me, was a tiny blue penguin, huddled next to a scraggly bush beside the warehouse. I stopped in my tracks and stared at him. And he stared back at me. Neither of us moved. We watched each other in silence for a few seconds, and then I continued my walk back to the campsite.

It's incidents like these that make me upset about the attitude of some tourists. We were all specifically told not to use flash photography (it scares the penguins), but this guy felt the need to chase this little penguin around, flashing happily away, so he could have something for his scrapbook. Does he care that he probably scared that penguin shitless? Does he care that if enough tourists like him did the same thing, they could potentially alter the nesting behavior of those penguins forever? I don't know. But I hope that as I continue my travels, I will never fall victim to the same sense of entitlement.