Bob Brown Foundation is calling on the Tasmanian government to follow Victoria’s example and vaccinate a cohort of the island’s little penguins.

More than 5000 little penguins at Phillip Island and St Kilda in Victoria are to be vaccinated as part of the program to combat H5N1 bird flu. The penguins need to be vaccinated twice and are one of the few wild species which can be caught for vaccination. Victoria has a total of approximately 50,000 little penguins.

However, Tasmania’s minister for the environment, Guy Barnett, says the government won’t vaccinate Tasmania’s penguins because they are ‘not threatened’ or ‘considered a priority species’.

Tasmania will vaccinate a number of captive species including orange-bellied parrots and caged raptors but has not announced any scheme for birds in the wild.

Bob Brown says that the majority of Tasmania’s 100,000 to 200,000 little penguins nest in offshore islands but a similar program to Victoria’s would help ensure the survival of mainland colonies like those in the Derwent, at Bicheno, Lillico, Burnie, Stanley, Low Head and Bruny Island.

He says a small sample of vulnerable black swans, now about to nest, and other species which might be captured and released, should also be vaccinated.