Why Little Penguins In Manly Cove Become Endangered

Senior Geography Project
AIM
To investigate why the Little Penguins in Manly Cove have become endangered.
HYPOTHESIS
Human interaction has led the Little Penguins residing in Manly Cove to become endangered.
QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED
Why are the Little Penguins endangered? What is being done to preserve the existing colonies in Manly? What can the general public do to aid this?
METHODOLOGY
Primary and secondary sources needed to be gathered to complete this project.
Primary sources included:
• Observations and recordings of the amount of dogs on and off leashes around Manly Wharf and Federation Point
• Pictures of penguin habitats and advertisements/signs which include Little Penguin information
• Sketches of penguin
The Manly Little Penguins are not considered to be tourist attractions although they do have some publicity. During the breeding season, people often gather around the cove at night to catch a glimpse.
The penguins in Manly cove make their nests in rock crevices, sand or soft soil. Their nests are made of leaves, twigs, bark and human rubbish and they use their visual memory of land formations, lights and underwater contours to lead them back to their nests. (ABC, 2015)
WHY ARE THE LITTLE PENGUINS ENDANGERED? There are many factors that have led to the endangerment of Manly Cove’s Little Penguins. These factors include a loss of suitable habitat, attacks by predators, disturbance of nesting sites, pollution and possibly climate change. (NSW Office of Environment & Heritage, 2014)

A LOSS OF SUITABLE
Climate change is causing the temperature of the water to rise, which may be having detrimental impacts on the penguins. As penguins thrive off of the nutrients that they acquire through cool waters, the deprivation of these cool waters in Manly Cove may be having highly negative effects on the penguins. (Phillips, 2015) (Refer to Appendix 1 for article.) WHAT IS BEING DONE TO PRESERVE THE REMAINING LITTLE PENGUINS IN MANLY?

In 1995, Manly’s little penguin colony was listed as an endangered population, under the ‘Threatened Species Conservation Act’ 1995. (NSW Office of Environment & Heritage, 2014) Since then many programs have been set up and many actions have been taken to conserve the Manly colony.
CRITICAL HABITAT
A critical habitat map has been drawn up to show the areas where it is most important to be aware of the penguins. In critical habitat areas the anchoring of boats and fishing between sunset and sunrise is discouraged. The main critical habitat areas around Manly Cove and North Harbour can be seen in Figure 1.7, below.