Climate change good for little penguins

Posted Tue Mar 23, 2010 2:47pm AEDT

Tasmanian Little Penguins in burrow infra red camera August 2008

Little penguins are expected to breed more successfully if sea surface temperatures increase. (ABC News: Andy Wallace)

Research shows that climate change could be good for the little penguin populations in Bass Strait.

A public forum at Ulverstone in north west Tasmania has heard that coastal erosion and climate change will destroy the habitat of many sea birds such as hooded plovers and red-necked stints.

But Peter Dann from the Phillip Island Nature Park in Victoria says penguins that breed in northern Tasmania, Victoria and the Bass Strait islands may benefit from climate change. "Some of the predicted climate change is actually going to be positive," he said. "Penguins, for example, we think are going to breed earlier and probably more successfully if sea surface temperatures in Bass Strait increase."

Mr Dann says more work needs to be done to investigate the sea birds."Even the climate is something that hasn't been completely established yet, what the predictions are for the next 100 years,but for birds, at least, we don't have as good information on the birds as we do on the climate, even so there's a lot of speculation necessary, unfortunately."

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