Fire retardant trees planted for Phillip Island penguins

Little penguins haven't evolved to avoid fire, putting them at increased risk during their summer breeding period on land.

Transcript

00:00 Meters from some of Phillip Island's most popular beaches, thousands of little penguins

00:06 hide just beneath the surface.

00:10 They've survived here for millions of years, despite predictions half a century ago that

00:14 they'd be extinct by the early 2000s.

00:17 But a new and growing threat has conservationists worried.

00:22 If we were to have catastrophic conditions, almost the entire colony could burn in a single

00:27 fire event.

00:28 Penguins are sitting ducks when it comes to fire.

00:31 They simply have no fire sense at all.

00:33 The island isn't naturally prone to fire, yet it's been part of the narrative here

00:37 since colonisation, when settlers burned the land for farming, erasing much of the indigenous

00:43 plant life.

00:44 That loss of biodiversity, combined with the threat of climate change, means little penguins

00:49 are more at risk than ever.

00:51 In previous fires in the colony, we've seen them just stay in their burrows until they

00:56 succumb to the flames, to the heat.

00:59 We've even seen penguins standing next to flame, preening their feathers.

01:03 While humans are experts at creating problems for nature, they're also pretty good at

01:07 coming up with solutions.

01:10 We're not just trying to improve habitat and address issues as a consequence of poor

01:16 management actions in the past, but we're looking forward so it's about climate change

01:20 adaptation and building resilience into the landscape as well.

01:24 Over several months, the Nature Parks team replaced flammable shrubs and trees with fire-retardant

01:31 natives to create natural fire barriers and insulate penguin burrows against heat stress.

01:37 The three-year project is one of the most significant efforts to safeguard the species

01:41 since the government bought this estate in the 80s, reclaiming hundreds of vacation lots

01:46 for the little penguins.

01:49 It took volunteers just a couple of weeks to put in 15,000 plants across three sites

01:54 like this one, but it'll take at least another couple of years before they actually start

01:59 working like fire barriers.

02:01 In the meantime, the team here just has to hope there are no major fires.

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