A swamp wallaby bounces around at sunset on Phillip’s Island.
Phillip Island, off the south coast of Victoria, Australia, is a destination known for its natural wonders, ranging from a nightly parade of tiny penguins on the beaches to an abundance of koalas and wallabies. Some crucial wildlife conservation efforts saved these natural wonders for years to come.
This past weekend I was lucky enough to take a tour of Phillip Island, a popular day trip from Melbourne, nestled just off Australia’s southern coast. The island is famous to both nature lovers and motor bike enthusiasts alike, due to the island’s wonderful and abundant wildlife and the yearly motor bike race at the Phillip Island Grand Prix racetrack. Both of these help draw immense crowds to the island. Most are only visitors. The island is only home to a little more than 7,000 people, but it used to house a much larger population.
Besides the big race every year, Phillip Island’s biggest draw is the nightly “penguin parade” of tiny blue penguins (the smallest penguin species in the world) out of the water and up a hill to their nests at Summerland Beach. It is an extremely bankable event for tourists as hundreds of penguins come out of the Southern Ocean every night causing thousands of people to show up and pack the stands along the beach, like spectators to some sporting event of tiny penguins waddling across the beach as fast as their tiny legs can waddle. They move faster than you would think, though the occasional spill reminds you that they are adapted for the water.
The little penguin colony here on the northern end of Phillip Island may be the largest in the world at an estimated 32,000 total with at least 5,000 nesting on or near Summerland Beach. It would be drastically reduced if the Summerland Peninsula was still home to hundreds of people, like it was for much of the 20th century.
The peninsula was initially divided into 776 residential lots in 1927 and had almost 200 homes constructed at one point in a community known as Summerland Estate. Although the people living there did not directly aim to kill penguins, their mere existence gravely threatened the colony. Cars would strike penguins as they tried to make it to their nests, cats and dogs would kill the penguins, and the hundreds of homes going up took away valuable penguin nesting habitat.
But today on the north end of Phillip Island there is almost no evidence that a large human community ever lived there, except for one old street sign jaggedly sticking from wild grass and the slight outlines of lower levels of vegetation where roads once existed. Swamp wallabies and large Cape Barren geese graze throughout the old settlement, sometimes bounding or waddling across the only remaining road to find a better patch. The large tract of land, which is now run by the Phillip Island Nature Park, looks about as wild as it probably ever did, thanks to an ambitious re-wilding attempt by the Victorian government.
A swamp wallaby hanging out where Summerland Estate, a large housing complex, used to exist on Phillip Island.
In 1985, the government began to buy back the property owned throughout the peninsula. The final property was not purchased until 2010, at which point an intensive habitat restoration effort was undertaken and the Summerland Peninsula Master Plan, which seeks to promote tourism on that part of the island while still protecting it, was formed. The homes were removed, the roads taken out, and all the signs, save the one, taken down. All of this was done to insure that the incredible and profitable penguin colony survived, which during the height of the Summerland Estate, was estimated to have been decimated by 1997 if things did not change.
This is an unprecedented move by the Victorian Government to purchase an entire town for conservation purposes. And it has paid off, for both the penguins and the government (but not so much for the area’s ousted residents who met the move with the scorn you would expect when someone’s beachside community is taken away from them). The government used 10.5 million Australian dollars to buy back all the houses. The “penguin parade” is estimated to bring in an estimated $498 million to the state’s economy each year!
A little penguin peeks out from his wooden nest at sunset.
Today instead of houses, tiny wooden man-made penguin burrows dot the hillsides of what once was Summerland Estate. The little penguins were not the only species saved as the endangered eastern barred bandicoot has also been released in the park. Additionally, one species was kicked off the island along with the settlers of Summerland Estate. Foxes have been successfully eradicated on the island and no longer feed on the penguins as they shuffle to their nests.
The “penguin parade” truly is a magical site to witness as the little penguins dart out of the water in varying group sizes. At first you can only see their white bellies bobbing up and down as they frantically make their way up the beach (they come out at night to avoid hawks and move as quickly as they can to avoid the occasional hawk out for a late night snack). Once off the beach, the group splits up and each penguin goes its separate way to its nest. There are lighted boardwalks that go all the way up the hill so visitors can walk besides the penguins as they trudge on up the hill. If a penguin has a nest on the top of the hill, they’ll have to hop over a small curb, a task as difficult as us trying to jump half our body height with virtually no knees. To my relief, the penguin I saw attempt the jump got it on his first try.
The little blue penguins parading up the beach may be the most unique thing you’ll see on Phillip Island, but there is plenty else to see. I started off my trip with a visit to the Cape Woolamai beach, another protected area, and watched the surfers shred the waves on a perfect day. Cuttlebones from cuttlefish, an internal shell-like structure that helps the cuttlefish stay afloat, dotted the beach like arrowheads after an ancient battle.
Me holding a cuttlebone from a cuttlefish. Some were the size of my hand and must have been from some frighteningly large cephalopods.
Above: Some of the sights along Woolamai Beach.
After the beach, I stopped at the Koala Reserve, to see the only animal on Phillip Island (sorry wallabies) capable of challenging the little penguins for the island’s cutest animal. The reserve has two large outdoor areas that are almost entirely wilderness, save for two boardwalks that take visitors to the koala’s level. The koalas were not quite as plentiful as my trip to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, but it was a lot more like seeing them in the wild which made it all the more worthwhile. The best part was that a few of the notoriously languid koalas were awake, munching on eucalyptus leaves and lazily eyeing the visitors snapping pictures of them.
Me snapping some of the pictures above at the Koala Reserve.
Another intriguing spot on Phillip Island for nature lovers is the board walk at the Nobbies, another protected area along the north end of the island that offers exquisite views of the rugged Southern Ocean coastline. Just off the coast is Seal Rock which contains Australia’s largest fur seal colony (the seals are unfortunately out of view). While working your way along the boardwalks that wind along the cliffs, keep your eyes out for little penguins scurrying under the boardwalk or peeking out from their wooden nests. I also saw a copperhead snake lying in the grass just off the boardwalk, and several wallabies mulling about, as seems to be the case everywhere on Phillip Island.
Above: Some scenes from the Nobbies at sunset including some striking scenery and rock formations, a posing wallaby and a copperhead snake.
Phillip Island is incredible thanks to an ambitious conservation effort that exhibits one of the best habitat restoration efforts in the world. The “penguin parade” is as neat as it sounds (no photography is allowed but check out some incredible pictures here) and I was there on a relatively quiet day with only 200-300 penguins coming ashore. It was awesome to see koalas, pristine and rugged coastlines, and hundreds of tiny penguins all on one incredible island.
All pictures taken by Jack Tamisiea
Sources:
https://www.penguins.org.au/conservation/conservation/conservation-programs/habitat-rehabilitation/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-08/phillip-island-when-penguins-won-and-land-owners-lost/9464698
