Following penguins beneath the waves
Kororā/little penguins nest in burrows along the coasts of New Zealand and Australia. Emperor penguins raise their chicks on Antarctic sea ice. Hoiho/yellow-eyed penguins forage in the waters of southern New Zealand and its subantarctic islands. Despite living in vastly different environments, all three species are adapting to a rapidly changing ocean.
Dr Rachel Hickcox has worked with each of these remarkable penguins, using miniature biologging devices to collect data on how they navigate and find food. In this talk, she’ll share what penguin tracking reveals about their behaviour and what these species can teach us about conservation in a changing world.
Bio
Dr Rachel Hickcox is a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Canterbury, specialising in the movement ecology of marine predators across Aotearoa New Zealand and Antarctica. She bridges field-based data collection with analytical approaches using biologging, spatial statistics, and GIS to understand how penguins and seals respond to environmental variability and anthropogenic pressures. Her postdoctoral work focuses on Antarctic mesopredator ecology in the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area. Rachel is also the lead penguin ecologist for the Helps Pōhatu Conservation Trust, managing a long-term monitoring programme at one of Aotearoa's largest mainland kororā/little penguin colonies.
Event
Tuesday, 15 September 2026, 8:00pm – 9:00pm @C1 Espresso, 185 High Street, Christchurch Central 8142
The other talk at this location is A tail of two cities: Wildlife in the urban jungle at 6:30pm – 7:30pm
