Kangaroo Island penguins mauled to death
Updated
Kangaroo Island penguins attacked by dog (7pm TV News SA)
An attack on a penguin colony on Kangaroo Island in South Australia may have been by a dog, but there is also a chance the culprit was a seal.
At least 15 little penguins were mauled to death. A tourist found the penguins on a beach near Kingscote on Sunday morning.
The colony is a popular part of the island's tourism industry as about half of Kingscote's visitors take penguin tours.
The manager of the town's penguin centre John Ayliffe says the council has found the dog which some are blaming for the attack.
"The town has a high sense of ownership of the penguin colony here, there's about 800 penguins here so if a dog has been getting out and killing penguins there's public pressure to see that situation is corrected," he said.
The council said it was yet to decide whether the dog will be put down, but it is taking the attacks very seriously.
Mr Ayliffe says the penguins are already under threat and it is likely the 12 found on Sunday were not the only birds killed.
"Because the areas in a semi-natural state, there's a lot of bush and stuff," he said.
"We wouldn't have found anywhere near all of them. But the problem is that every adult penguin that is killed essentially means two penguins dead because they can't raise their young for the rest of the year."
Kangaroo Island mayor Jayne Bates has raised the prospect that the penguins may have been attacked by a seal, not a dog.
She said paw prints in the sand were not firm evidence of the culprit.
"Unfortunately paw prints on the beach doesn't give us much direction and doesn't actually lead you to believe it is a dog absolutely. Our penguins unfortunately do also suffer seal attacks quite regularly," she said.
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