Scientists have made a concerning discovery after attaching cameras to yellow-eyed penguins.
What they're eating is changing, and that's heightening fears the rare birds will face extinction this century.
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"We've been using new high definition cameras to examine their underwater behaviour, how they pursue their prey," said Thomas Mattern, an Otago University researcher.
Mattern says yellow-eyed penguins traditionally foraged on the seafloor for things like blue cod and opal fish.
But the cameras reveal the birds are changing their eating habits, like one that was filmed targetting jellyfish at Boulder Beach off the Otago Peninsula.
"The diet has changed in yellow-eyed penguins presumably as a consequence of alterations of the marine habitat from fishing as well as ocean warming and climate change," Mattern says.
Mattern says the future looks bleak for the yellow-eyed penguin - they're expected to face extinction this century.
He is one of the speakers at this weekend's International Penguin Conference being held in Dunedin. Penguin biologist Lloyd Davis started the event 31 years ago and he says research like Mattern's is critical.
"The penguins are really suffering because of what's happening at sea and by Thomas's work he can show us what the penguins are doing which will help save them, but it also tells us how we are stuffing up the planet and it might help save us," says Davis.
An underwater insight offering up lessons we can all learn from.
Newshub.
