Hoiho win permanent fishing protections after year-long fight for survival

Tuesday, 28 July 2026

A year after conservationists warned the yellow-eyed penguin was disappearing colony by colony, the Government has locked in permanent fishing restrictions around the Otago Peninsula and created a new trigger system to respond if more birds are killed.

Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has confirmed an emergency set-net closure around the Otago Peninsula will become permanent from September 16, alongside a new framework designed to trigger stronger action if fishing-related hoiho deaths rise.

The decision follows a dramatic year for the critically endangered species, including the death of the last breeding-age female at Sandfly Bay, another fishing-related death off Rakiura Stewart Island, a High Court challenge, and new data showing nest numbers have fallen by another 20% in a single year.

The latest figures from the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust show just 115 nests remain across the mainland and Rakiura – down from 739 in 2008.

Read more

• Tragedy at sea: Another rare hoiho drowns as High Court battle begins

• She was the last: Penguin starvation crisis sparks call for emergency fishing ban

• Surprise penguin fishing ban from pro-industry minister Shane Jones

Jones said the new measures would reduce the risk from fisheries bycatch.

“However, I want to be very clear that fisheries bycatch is not the main reason the northern hoiho population is in a precarious state,” he said.

“The major risks to hoiho are disease, predation, and starvation, but implementing these long-term measures to reduce the risk of fisheries bycatch will help.”

The move marks a significant shift for Jones, a long-time defender of the fishing industry, who last year said he wanted to understand “to what extent fishing techniques are worsening the woes of the penguin”.

In August, conservationists had urged him to act urgently, warning the species was at risk of disappearing from the mainland within a decade.

Their calls followed the February 2024 death of the last known breeding-age female at Sandfly Bay, whose drowning in a set net marked the functional extinction of that breeding site.

Jones responded by imposing a temporary emergency closure around the Otago Peninsula in September last year.

Conservationists argued the ban, which extends from the Taieri River mouth to Karitāne and out eight nautical miles, protects only part of the penguins’ range.

The Government’s new fishing-related mortality limit sets a threshold of four accidental hoiho deaths a year for the northern population. The limit sets the maximum number of deaths each year before a fishery has to close and has rarely been used.

Jones said the number was not a target but a trigger for further intervention. “This is not a target, it is a bottom line,” he said.

The framework could lead to further restrictions if the limit is exceeded.

Once a common sight along Otago’s beaches, the hoiho is one of the world’s rarest penguin species, found only in southern Aotearoa.

The penguins routinely forage up to 20 nautical miles offshore. But the seabirds have undergone a significant shift in diet over the past three decades, away from small, oily fish like sprat and red cod, toward larger, low-fat blue cod.

This means they must work harder for less nutrition and some chicks can’t swallow the tougher fish. That’s seen underweight chicks end up in rehabilitation centres, many of them too frail to survive.

While land-based threats like introduced predators and human disturbance are well known, research also points to deepening marine stress, including the effects of climate change.