Middle Island Penguin Project to expand research to shearwaters, cormorants and oystercatchers

Each year the Little Penguin migrates to the island to breed.

Warrnambool Coastcare Landcare Network Middle Island's Olivia Pagotto said the project would focus on other bird life at Middle Island.

"We have short-tailed shearwaters, pied cormorants and the sooty oystercatcher - all native Australian birds that also breed on the island," she said.

"We're looking at researching their biodiversity as the (Maremma) dogs protect them as well."

Maremmas were introduced to the island in 2006 to protect the penguins from foxes.

In the same year, the closure of the island to the public was introduced.

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Ms Pagotto said it was hard to predict how many penguin chicks would be born this season.

"There are lots of factors going into it, for example, how many of the adults will be first-time breeders or are consistent breeders," she said.

"It's common for first-time breeders not to have success as they might have eggs that don't hatch because the parents are too young to produce healthy chicks.

"Hopefully we're going to see a few clutches - usually two eggs at a time - but it depends on the number of breeding pairs coming up the coast."

Ms Pagotto said since foxes attacked and killed penguins on the island in 2017, the number of chicks born there had steadily increased.

"In the season we just had we didn't have an estimate because we couldn't get out to the island much," she said.

A report tabled by Warrnambool City Council in October last year said the limited access was due to poor weather and tide conditions increasing the risk at the Stingray Bay crossing.

Higher rates of penguins than the previous season were recorded with no evidence of fox attacking penguins while the dogs were there and no birds were killed. Breeding was not observed during this time.

READ MORE: Penguins nursed back to health are released at Warrnambool's Stingray Bay

Middle Island project officer Lillian Maher said preparation of the island had begun including fox control.

"We've been able to cross to the island in the last couple of weeks and take dogs across to scent the island to keep the foxes away," Ms Maher said.

"We're also scenting the beach at Stingray Bay all year around - as that's where the foxes are coming from."

She said the project was also monitoring the tide, the weather and crossings to the island.

Ms Maher said it was also working on its penguin education program.

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