#korora

You poor little blue

Babies boiling--

We watch the waves

Cresting one into

The next as the water

Rises, sorry is not

Enough, fragile and

Fragmented as the

Sickness grows, we

Are the wound

i challenged myself to draw an animal each month this year, and i’m proud of myself that i’ve kept it up for half the year, despite things being crazy busy

Work on a large section of the $500 million Shelly Bay development in Wellington has been stopped after a penguin-proof fence was tampered with to allow the protected seabirds in.

Three little blue penguins – or kororā – were on Saturday night photographed crossing the road at Shelly Bay Taikuru, but being blocked from getting inland after a skirt was installed below a construction site fence.

One of the key commercial terms developer Ian Cassels had to make with the Wellington City Council, when he bought and leased land there from it, was the penguins who nested at Shelly Bay had to be rehomed.

The skirting was installed to keep penguins out of the danger of a construction site. A small accessible area was retained with four nesting boxes, but it seems the penguins were unaware of it.

Worksite kaitiaki Charlie Rudd, of Taranaki Whānui, on Tuesday confirmed the penguin-proof skirting had been tampered with and penguins got into the site.

“I have shut the site because of it,” he said. He confirmed penguin sniffer dogs were being brought in to find the penguins.

The site would remain closed “as long as I need to”, he said.

The penguin plan, with designated nesting area, was entirely a Māori initiative.

Wellington iwi Taranaki Whānui are involved in the development.

Taranaki Whānui chairperson Kara Puketapu-Dentice said the iwi was working experts to protect wildlife at the site. He asked people didn’t interfere with the birds.

“After a suspected sighting of kororā in the weekend, one of our on the ground mana whenua kaitiaki contacted experts to conduct a penguin survey with trained detection dogs.