FIRST VISITOR

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31343, 13 April 1967, Page 1

FIRST VISITOR

A penguin, found on Oreti beach, Invercargill, last week has been identified as of the Antarctic Emperor species by Dr. B. Stonehouse, reader in zoology at the University of Canterbury.

There was no record of an Emperor penguin having been found before on the coast of New Zealand, said Dr. Stonehouse, an authority on the bird, yesterday. He identified the penguin as an Emperor after receiving a photograph from the manager of the Southland Acclimatisation Society’s game farm, Mr J. A. Macintosh. It was a young bird, probably between two and five years old. Young birds were

inclined to wander more in the first few years of their lives, and this was simply one of these. Dr. Stonehouse said.

There had been reports of Emperors being sighted in the Falkland Islands and the Cape Horn area, but this was the first sighting of one so far north. It would be of interest to ornithologists throughout the world.

Normally, these penguins lived in the icy regions south of the Antarctic Circle, he said.

Asked whether the penguin found near Invercargill would get back to the Antarctic, Dr. Stonehouse said this would depend largely whether it escaped attack. Mr Macintosh said yesterday he picked up the penguin from near the beach on Friday and on Saturday took it out to sea about threequarters of a mile beyond Bluff.