Every month, staff at the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier pick two members of their little penguin colony for a public honour: the "Naughty Penguin of the Month" and the "Good Penguin of the Month." The results go up on a blue noticeboard beside the penguins' photos, each with a one-line citation, and the boards became a hit on the aquarium's Facebook page and far beyond it.
The offences range from fish theft to evading the monthly weigh-in, while the good behaviour includes diligent egg-sitting and helping a partner home. Below are the boards from the first year of the tradition, followed by what the citations tell us about real penguin behaviour.
The aquarium and its penguins
The National Aquarium of New Zealand sits on Marine Parade in Napier, on the east coast of the North Island. It began in 1957 in the basement of the town's War Memorial Hall and moved to its current seafront site in 1976. Among its residents is a colony of little penguins.
The little penguin, known in Māori as kororā and also called the little blue or fairy penguin, is the smallest penguin species, standing roughly 30 to 33 centimetres tall and weighing about 1.5 kilograms. In the wild it lives around New Zealand and southern Australia, feeds on small fish, squid and crustaceans, and nests in burrows, caves and crevices near the shore. It is the only penguin whose time on land is strictly nocturnal: birds spend the day fishing at sea and waddle home at dusk. Globally it is listed as Least Concern, but in New Zealand it is classed as "at risk, declining," largely because of introduced predators, habitat loss and oil spills.
According to the aquarium's history, staff have voted for the best-behaved and naughtiest penguin each month since 2017, and the public votes for a Penguin of the Year each October.
The monthly boards
Naughty: Tux, for pushing Timmy off the pier after it took him an hour to walk there. Good: Mr Mac, who calls out to his blind partner so she can find her burrow easily. Calling is how little penguins locate each other; pairs use distinctive calls, especially around the nest.
Naughty: Mo, who "perfected the art of fish stealing," even taking fish out of other birds' mouths. Good: Flip, a role model who "swims well, eats nicely, knows how to penguin." Competition at feeding time is common in captive colonies, which is one reason keepers track who eats what.
Naughty: Flip, a model citizen on another board, for evading the keepers on monthly weighing day. Good: Burny, for giving Mo "a taste of his own medicine" by stealing his fish. Regular weigh-ins let keepers spot health problems early, so dodging the scales is a genuine nuisance.
Naughty: Burny, now "learning bad habits from Mo" and pecking the others in the face during feeding. Good: Draco, for standing up for Timmy when Tux tries to push him off the pier. The boards read like a small soap opera with recurring characters.
Naughty: Mo, cited simply as "Outright obnoxious." Good: Burny, "our newest resident," who quickly learned the daily routines. This is also the board shown in the cover image at the top, and Mo is easily the most frequent name on the naughty list.
Naughty: Dora, for attacking the male keepers, "specifically Tall Matt." Good: Captain, for "being a good Penguin Daddy." In little penguins both parents share incubation and chick-rearing, so a dutiful father is exactly what the species needs.
Naughty: Mo again, this time for stealing fish off other penguins only to drop them on the sand. Good: Jack, for "being a diligent egg incubator." A little penguin clutch is usually one or two eggs, incubated for up to about 36 days.
Naughty: Dora, for "being demanding and needing escorting to the feeding station." Good: Lulu, "helpful, friendly and co-operative." Even in a small colony, individual personalities clearly show.
Naughty: Timmy, who stole fish and pushed another penguin over, a reversal for the bird so often pushed around. Good: Betty, a good swimmer who "waited patiently for fish."
Naughty: Pepper, for playing with and dropping their food. Good: Captain, "punctual, eats first and leaves first."
Naughty: Mr Mac, "an egg-hogger" who was not swimming enough. Good: Timmy, for learning to feed in the water and becoming a strong swimmer. Mr Mac's citation is a nice reminder that a good penguin one month can be a naughty one the next.
What the "crimes" tell us about real penguins
The humour works because each citation describes something penguins genuinely do, just in the language of a staff newsletter:
- Fish theft and pecking reflect competition at feeding time. Keepers in many aquariums hand-feed penguins individually, which helps them check that every bird gets enough.
- Dodging the weigh-in matters because weight is one of the simplest ways to monitor a small seabird's health.
- Egg-sitting and egg-hogging come from shared incubation. Both partners take turns, so one bird refusing to swap is a real annoyance.
- Calling to a partner is how pairs find each other and their burrows, which explains Mr Mac's good deed for his blind companion.
Labels like "naughty" are, of course, a joke. Penguins aren't misbehaving in any moral sense; they're competing, guarding and pairing up the way their species always has. What the boards do well is introduce visitors to individual birds with names and personalities, which tends to make people care more about the wild colonies those birds represent.
How to help wild little penguins
If the boards made you smile, the wild kororā could use the goodwill. In New Zealand the main threats are introduced predators, loss of coastal nesting habitat and pollution such as oil spills. Simple steps help: keep dogs on a lead near beaches and coastal walks, watch for penguins crossing coastal roads at dusk, never disturb burrows, and support local penguin conservation groups and nest-box projects where they exist.
Sources: boards shared by the National Aquarium of New Zealand on Facebook; Wikipedia on the National Aquarium of New Zealand and the little penguin.
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