Penguin researchers warn climate change and bird flu threaten penguin habitats

The world's leading penguin researchers have issued a stark warning about the effects climate change will have on penguin habitats.

The scientists met this week at the 12th International Penguin Conference on Phillip Island, in Victoria's south-east, to discuss the latest research about the seabirds and bird flu management strategies.

At the end of the week-long conference, the researchers released a statement calling for "decisive conservation action" to protect penguins and their habitats.

"When penguins struggle we should pay attention. Their warning is about the health of our oceans and ultimately the health of our planet," the statement said.

The call to action comes as the United Nations warns the world will breach the 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming benchmark within the next five years.

Penguins under pressure

Phillip Island Nature Parks senior scientist and chair of the conference Andre Chiaradia said penguins were facing a growing combination of pressures.

He said penguins depend on healthy oceans to survive, and changing oceans could affect where penguins feed, when they breed, how they raise their chicks and whether their populations grow or decline.

He said a major concern for penguins was ice shelves melting at a "scary, fast pace".

"Penguins are suffering from a thousand cuts so [bird flu] is just an extra cut on penguins' lives.

"If we do what we can … then we can probably provide a brighter future for penguins."

He said sustainable fisheries, protecting critical feeding and breeding habitats, effective predator management and long-term monitoring could help strengthen the resilience of penguin populations.

Timely event

Phillip Island is home to about 40,000 little penguins, making it the world's largest colony.

This year's conference followed the death in August of a little penguin on the island from H5 bird flu.

So far more than 1,500 penguins have been vaccinated against the disease as part of the government's plan to vaccinate 5,000 of the birds at Phillip Island and St Kilda.

Federation University biological sciences lecturer and speaker at the conference Meagan Dewar said this year's conference was timely.

"It's very important to have so many penguin experts here in the one place as Australia is facing H5N1 outbreaks," she said.

"We have many experts from places that have already experienced this, such as South America and South Africa, and also the Antarctic.

Ms Dewar said Australian experts could learn from other countries' experience of monitoring the disease and how they managed outbreaks.

New research ideas

The researchers also discussed the latest technology used to understand and protect penguins, including artificial intelligence and drones.

US geospatial scientist and conference speaker Brett Buzzanga said one of the biggest benefits was the multiplicity of perspectives and the different knowledge each group had.

Mr Buzzanga works with drones equipped with thermal cameras to detect penguins living underground, providing a better picture of penguin populations and how they change over time.

"As with the rest of the world, AI is a big player in being able to classify different images, being able to recognise different patterns in the data," Mr Buzzanga said.

He said advances in technology allowed researchers to cover much larger areas than they could by hand.

"A lot of the tech unlocks the potential to expand those regions, expand science, expand conservation," Mr Buzzanga said.

"So sharing that with each other, that's the goal."