UNDER CONSTRUCTION
STILT is a feature-length documentary showcasing the world’s rarest and most elusive penguin, the endemic New Zealand Yellow-Eyed penguin (Hoiho). STILT explores the foundations of the Yellow Eye’s life on a much deeper and intimate level, particularly their life on land as a bush-dwelling penguin.
With a plummeting population and fewer than 150 known nests on mainland New Zealand, the Yellow Eye faces a perilous demise. STILT examines the various people, places and operations that are working to hold onto the fleeting lives of the Yellow-Eyed Penguins.
STILT is still in its production stages, release date - approx JULY 2026
A BROADER PICTURE
At least 7 core organisations and a broader collective of over 20 groups are actively involved in working with, protecting, and rehabilitating yellow-eyed penguins in the Dunedin/Otago Peninsula area.
With all these different groups, all with different ideas, beliefs, land rights and environmental morals, all trying to do the same thing, but in their own way. This begs the question: Should it be like this? Should multiple different organisations, businesses, charities and tour operators have their own way of protecting the Yellow eyes or should there be a grand scheme shared by all, in a way that is scientifically proven to reverse the effects of Hoiho extinction? Here is a look at each group involved in the STILT documentary and what they are doing.
The OPERA (Otago Peninsula Eco Restoration Alliance), formally known as Penguin Place, works on habitat restoration and penguin rehabilitation, with an on-site rehab centre. They are located towards the end of the Otago Peninsula, and have quite the large area of land, along with two beaches. OPERA also run wildlife tours, and rather than letting the tourists roam free on the beach, OPERA built an expansive network of trenches that let visitors view the penguins at ground/eye level. This was interesting to see, as no other tourism operator in Otago has built such vast camouflaged trenches, and it certainly cost them millions. Jason at OPERA says that the tours they run have virtually zero impact on wildlife, as visitors are hidden from view and are told to stay quiet. Jason told me that the penguins are often seen climbing on top of the trenches, totally unaware of the multiple Chinese, German, French and Australian tourists who are watching their every step.
In terms of eco restoration, OPERA says that it will take over 100 years for the ex-pasture land to regrow into native forest, but they are constantly putting efforts into tree planting and predator trapping.
Things are looking bleak for the penguins at OPERA with the latest season being their worst, according to Jason. The yellow-eyed chicks are dying due to disease and malnutrition, with currently only two breeding pairs on the OPERA property. Jason goes out into the field every 2 days to perform mouth health checks and weigh the chicks. A recent disease shows that baby yellow-eyed penguins are developing sores and welts in their mouths, preventing them from eating. The two chicks at OPERA are currently healthy, but I can’t imagine for much longer. According to Jason, human contact, such as weighing and tagging, has little to no impact on the penguins, and the same goes with injured or malnourished penguins in the rehab, where they are fed and kept in pens. Jason says that this has been scientifically proven and that they “become feral again almost instantly” when let back into the wild.
Filming at OPERA has allowed me to see what great tourism management looks like and the dedication to penguin rehabilitation and monitoring. They are a respected company that has been in operation since 1985, but with the current decline of the yellow eyes, they may need to start thinking about new ways to advertise wildlife tours.
Natures Wonders, owned and operated by Perry and Tracey Reid, have an interesting approach to how they are managing yellow-eyed penguins on their land. Natures Wonders is the very last bit of land at the end of the Otago Peninsula, next to the albatross colony. I spent a few hours there with Perry, riding around in the argo. Perry was incredibly passionate and eager to show me why he thinks Nature’s Wonders is different from any other place in Dunedin or even New Zealand, he said.
Perry explained to me that they have taken a completly hands off approach to handling nature. They do not touch, weigh, monitor or revive, so to speak, any penguins or wildlife on their property. And in the 60 years of operation, Perry has been there to see it flourish.
Personally, growing up on Stewart Island my whole life, I have always been surrounded by raw nature, and seeing this property reminded me of this raw nature. The wildlife wasnt scared of Perry and I and the birdcall was louder than most places I had seen.
I like the hands off appraoch that Perry and his family have taken, he says in the 60 years he has been there, nobody has touched a single animal, and it actually shows. Perry thinks they have also killed the last possum on the property as a dung-smelling dog could not pick up the scent of the one that was previously there, which was impressive to hear.
In saying all this, the problem with a hands-off method is exactly how it seems. Yes, the environment is dealt with by Mother Nature, but in a world run by humans. The wildlife may seem more relaxed and curious, and the numbers may be flourishing higher than in other places in New Zealand, but without some kind of monitoring on disease and livelihood, it’s hard to say what the health of the wildlife is really in at Natures Wonders.
I’m all for Perry’s apparch and I think its the best way to do things, but first we need to deal with how we treat the ocean and our planet beofre letting a diseased mother take care of her Earth.
Dozens of curious newborn seal and sea-lion pups hanging around on the rocks. They were unbothered by our presence and were even coming in for a closer look.
The Yellow Eyed Penguin Trust (YEPT) is a non-government-owned charity that has been in operation since 1987 and was started by concerned Dunedin residents. They are dedicated to the conservation of the yellow-eyed penguin and are focused on habitat protection, predator control, and rehabilitation, having established a nursery around 1990 that has planted over 140,000 trees so far. The nursery used to be a surage outlet, known locally as the “poofarm”, before getting a peppercorn lease to transform it into a plant nursery.
I went to visit Louise Ashton, the nursery supervisor at YEPT, at her nursery and got to know about the types of plants that are being grown and why they are important to grow. Louise is a great character, and we had a riot together, laughing about all sorts to do with penguins, plants and everything in between. The nursery is mainly run by her, but she has a good group of oldie volunteers that come in weekly to help pot, weed and water the plants. She says she can get more done in 3 hours than she can alone in a week with her volunteers. The YEPT nursery grow alot of different key coastal plants, shrubs and trees, with what is called the tight five species, consisting of things like griselinia and totora. The YEPT started off growing around 15,000 plants a year and are unfortunately down to 5000 now.
Most of the plant seeds are eco-sourced, meaning seeds are taken from the plants themselves. With eco-sourcing seeds, a virtually unlimited supply of new plants can be grown, but without proper funding, the nursery becomes smaller and smaller. Louise told me that their previous government funding was cut off as the nursery and the YEPT weren't seen as an important entity to give money to. So yet again, the struggles push against everything and everyone involved in penguins.
Louise was a radiographer at Waikato Hospital and didn’t have a background in zoology or botany. She has been working for the YEPT nursery for 10 years, so a lot can be learnt in that time. Speaking to Louise was great as she has some really interesting things to say about the politics around penguins, coming from a person not involved in that area, it’s great to see what the public thinks about the whole lucrative operation.
I thought the nursery was great and it’s run by people who are actually passionate and interested in plants and penguins.
Griselinia, or Kapuka/New Zealand Broadleaf, a hardy native shrub used for coastal screening. It's very tolerant of wind, salt spray, and frost.
OPERA’s great camo trenches. They have around 700 meters worth of facisnating trenches that open up into semi-underground hides which allows visitors to see the beach and wildlife.
The Dunedin Wildlife Hospital is a really interesting place, opened in 2018 by Dr. Lisa Argilla in the Dunedin School of Art building complex, the hospital is designed to provide critical, year-round veterinary care for native South Island species. Before the hospital existed, injured wildlife would have to be treated by a combination of local vet clinics, the Department of Conservation (DOC), or often flown to the North Island for specialised treatment. So this Dunedin wildlife hospital reduces transport times for injured wildlife in the South Island and creates a dedicated veterinary space for endangered animals. The hospital has treated over 3,500 patients so far, with the most visited patient being, you guessed it, the yellow-eyed penguin.
I visited the hospital a few times to film a penguin that had a fractured leg, likey from a shark or sealion bite. Dr. Elizabeth Thomas, a wildlife veterinarian who has been at the hospital since 2019, spoke to me about the treatments and care they provide to penguins. This specific penguin I filmed needed a surgery to put pins in its leg. It’s quite the operation, with many penguins coming in needing various treatments, surguries and health assessments. The hopsital also has a big pool out the back where they let penguins and other seabirds feel as natural as possible when they are healthy enough to be outside. Elizabeth says that the penguins “generally tollerate human contact reaslonably well” with some of them getting comfortable enough to hand feed. The vets don’t let any visitors come and see the penguins as constantly seeing humans is appartly very stressful for the penguins. I was very lucky to be able to go in and film this treatment.
When I was there, Elizabeth and Angelina Martelli, the senior vet nurse, fed and gave fluids to a penguin. Fish was forced down the throat by hand, and fluids were given by a large syringe that was attached to a tube and put into the stomach. It was a bit gruesome to watch, but the penguin seemed to handle it well. I’m not sure how affected the penguins can be from something like this. If they are monitored on land and show no signs of distress, then this only gives researchers half a result as we have no control of what the penguins are like back at sea. Since opening, the wildlife hospital has treated over 1,300 yellow-eyed penguins (as of early 2025).
Clearwater Wildlife Tours is a family business that has been owned by the Clearwater family since 1838, when early European settlers were coming to Dunedin. Clearwater slowly evolved from a bed and breakfast in 1996 to providing guided wildlife tours on their property. I was given a tour of Clearwater by one of the local guides at the very beginning of my journey in creating the STILT documentary. It’s a great wee tour, starting in town and driving through the landscape before heading onto the Clearwater farm and walking down to the beach and into their wooden hide.
I went back myself a few days later to get special access with one of the workers, Ben, who allowed me to walk past the hide and set up my camera traps on the hill where the penguins walk up each evening. I ended up getting some fantastic footage, capturing a somewhat penguin renaissance. At the time of filming at Clearwater in July 2025, there were 22 yellow eyed penguins, and after speaking to the owner, Rachel, again, now in February 2026 there are ————— penguins.
Clearwater doesn’t perform health checks or have a rehab, but they do supply small nest boxes for the penguins, which they can choose weather or not they want to nest in. The larger population of penguins at Clearwater is a great sign, but again, without some kind of penguin monitoring, its hard to say how healthy they are.
Similar to OPERA, a nice wooden hide is built where you can see the wildlife from a safe distance. The hide isn’t accompanied by trenches or underground walkways and isn’t built down into the ground. Its more of a wooden hut, with a thin slit enough for your head to poke out of. It’s a cool thing to have but I think it acts more as weather protection and a barrier against seals & sea lions who like to lean up against the wood when it gets warm and sunny.
Clearwater also re-plant native trees to expand their private conservation area. However, as an active sheep farm, the property does look quite bare, with the only vegetation being near the beach, and I’m not sure how the planting is managed as I they didn’t give any information about volunteer planting or gardeners on the property. It seems Clearwater is mostly a sheep farm, where I assume most of their revenue comes from, and with a lucky draw of land location, they are able to do wildlife tours for extra cash. I don’t think the yellow eyed penguins are the main concern of Clearwater but I was very pleased to see the biggest group of penguins come ashore at once.
This yellow eye next to its big grandiose paddle pool. It didn’t look afraid or stressed out by me and was being hand fed by Elizabeth, meaning it had obviously gotten quite used to humans.
I spoke with Anna Campbell, a researcher at the University of Otago, who is working on her doctoral thesis on the extinction of the yellow-eyed penguin. Anna was also the former general manager at the Yellow Eyed Penguin Trust. She got a double degree on an exchange in France at Grenoble Ecole de Management, obtaining a certificate in global management, followed by a Master's of Entrepreneurship at Otago Uni and her current doctorate research project, titled, The Call of the Hoiho for a Sustainable Ocean: Landscape Pressures and Niche Environments in the Deep South - a Multi-Level Perspective Study"
Anna says there needs to be more innovative methods to better manage or solve environmental issues, and the work has to be done collaboratively, involving the various stakeholders. What the Yellow Eyed Penguin Trust did on land was very important in terms of rehab and reforestation, but there is still a huge job to be done at sea, and Anna thinks the social science aspect is missing.
One of Anna’s quotes from a recent interview with Otago Daily Times Newspaper article is, "Sometimes people say good things take time, or change doesn't happen overnight. I... like to challenge that and say, actually, we're seeing Bills fast-tracked left, right and centre — why can't we fast-track things for good? Just because something's taken 30 or 40 years to destroy an environment, it doesn't mean it's going to take 40 years to recover it. We can begin today."
Anna really opened my eyes to how much politics surrounds the penguins, and I think she was a vital part of the documentary. It’s young people with new ideas and energy that will make any change, and Anna is the perfect example.
At the presentation of her alumna award in 2025, Anna pitched a proposal to buy out commercial fishing to reduce bycatch to zero, which I thought was a revolutionary idea, similar to how environmentalists will buy out a plot of land from a farmer and turn pasture land into forests again, working WITH the farmers, rather then agasint them. It will be interesting to see how this proposal will play out and there has been alot of intrest from different parties so far.
The cool wooden hide on the beach at Clearwater. Along with being a great place to hide from the weather and animals, it makes a sweet frame for the landscape.
STRANGE FOREST TUNNELS
If undisturbed by human presence, the penguins follow a specific path pattern up to their nests every day. At about 3 pm, depending on the season, they waddle out of the water and straight up the middle of the dune before entering a specific patch of marram grass. They take a steep S-turn through the marram and into a shallow patch of hebe trees, leading to an exposed sandy ledge, which marks the grand entrance of their tunnel system. About 50 meters up the dune, the two penguins can be seen roosting on the edge of this sandy area, looking over the beach away from any danger. Sometimes standing and observing for up to 2 hours. Seeing the birds roost here is quite a dreamy sight, their rarity and timidness give them an almost diety spiritual feeling, as they look down on you before disappearing into the coastal forest.
From here, the penguins have an extensive and complex neural pathway of tunnels to choose from. Unfortunately, I was unable to explore this area as the tunnels are sandy, fragile, and tightly knit, which I would damage if I got too near. There is another area about 100 meters further up the bush that can be explored. I found this by observing the penguins on the shore. As they enter the tunnel system, they disappear for a good 10 minutes or more before reappearing on a sandy exposed ledge that leads into an open area of larger native boxwood trees, Taupata (mirror bush) and bush spinach. Away from the reaches of the ragwort and tree lupin, this area seems to be somewhat of a crossroad, where one path splits into many, weaving through the hebe trees. All these paths eventually lead to the same outcrop, a rather exposed cliff edge about 50 meters further up their climb. From here, the penguins are completely out of reach from humans and without a good eye, they are very hard to spot from the beach. Now about 200 meters from the shoreline, the penguins carry on up the loose dirt and shrubs before finally disappearing into denser forest near the top of the cliff. From here, I don’t know. It’s hard to say where they nest exactly, and I would never go looking.
I’ve attached some clips to the left that correspond to what I’ve written above.
A large, steep s-shaped curve through the marram
Finishing the s-curve
a path taken daily
Straight up the middle of the dune
Into a patch of marram grass
OBSERVATIONS