Our friend Philip McKibbin has created an exciting website designed to engage with New Zealanders and the animals they share their islands with. The website is called Animals Inbox. It presents messages written on behalf of the animals of Aotearoa New Zealand, and readers are invited to write back. The project aims to promote critical …
If you’ve read My Last Continent and The Tourist Trail you’ve met the Adélie, gentoo, chinstrap, emperor, and Magellanic penguins. Last year, we delighted to meet a new species: the Tawaki, or Fiordland-crested penguin. (Tawaki is the Māori name, meaning crested; these birds are found only on the South Island of New Zealand.) The amazing Tawaki …
So far 2018 has been a good year for penguins — a “supercolony” of 1.5 million Adélie penguins was discovered in the Danger Islands, thanks to a drone that was able to find them. This is fantastic news for Adélies, whose populations have been in serious decline on the western Antarctic peninsula, but it doesn’t mean …
When John and I went to the southern tip of New Zealand hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare, endangered yellow-eyed penguin (the Maori name is hoiho), we would’ve been happy for even a brief glimpse. These penguins are not only among the rarest on earth — there are only an estimated 4,000 left …
January 20 is Penguin Awareness Day, and it’s more important than ever that we celebrate (and work to protect) these amazing animals. If you’ve read My Last Continent, you’ve met the Adélie, gentoo, chinstrap, emperor, and Magellanic penguins. If you’ve read The Tourist Trail, you got to know Magellanic penguins very well. Last November, John …
We’re excited to once again be headed Down Under to meet with authors and readers. We have two events planned that all are welcome to attend: Christchurch, New Zealand Writing about Animals: Literature’s evolving relationship with the animal kingdom November 10th, 3 to 5pm At the University of Canterbury New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal …