Black Cat Cruises in Akaroa take keen tourists swimming with dolphins, but in their spare time some of the staff help save an endangered species.
Volunteers from the cruise company are dipping into dangerous waters to help save the smallest penguins in the world from its most persistent predator.
In the towering caves along the rugged coastline of the peninsula is where the rare white flippered penguin likes to rest and breed, but one stoat alone has destroyed more than 20 nests.
“I’ve seen stoats running along the cliff ledges going for the other birds’ nests…very persistent,” says skipper Hamish Crosby.
Luckily the staff members of the Black Cat Cruise Company are just as determined, dragging traps through freezing and dangerous water.
The white flippered penguin is a close cousin of the little blue, but far more endangered.
In the last 20 years alone, 70 percent of the white flippered penguin’s population has been decimated.
The penguins have been smart enough to move to very hard to reach places, a challenge to predator and protector alike.
Paul Bingham, managing director of Black Cat Cruises, says it can be dangerous but staff are doing all they can to keep safe.
“There’s no point saving penguins if you’re putting humans at risk,” he said.
The white flippered penguin only breed once a year around the end of October, so the war is not a thing of history yet.