Phillip Island's penguins hit the small screen

Posted Fri Sep 17, 2010 2:08pm AEST

The private lives of Victoria's penguins are on show thanks to a six-part television series being launched at Phillip Island today.

Producer Sally Ingleton says the series shows the lives and behaviour of the penguins, as well as their interaction with humans in the Phillip Island Nature Park.
"We show the fact that they often aren't faithful, that they do have affairs," she said.
"Also sometimes that things go wrong. Sometimes suddenly the fish will go offshore and the little chicks will be left waiting there for two, three, four nights for mum and dad to come home and, you know, sometimes they don't make it as well."
Ms Ingleton says Phillip Island's penguin colony is unique because of its interaction with tourists, park rangers and researchers.
"We always found that when we were working on the series, what people loved was when the worlds of animals and people actually collide," she said.
"That's why this story is so unique because we've documented perhaps the last 18 months when people were actually living in the colony alongside penguins."
The series has screened on the BBC in the United Kingdom, attracting audiences of more than 3 million for each episode.
The series starts on ABC1 on September 30.

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