23 Dec 2019

2019 in review: Penguins escorted from sushi shop

From Morning Report, 8:57 am on 23 December 2019

Two New Zealand superstars this year were a pair of Little Blue Penguins who made headlines around the world when they decided to make their nest under a sushi shop.

The pair crossed a busy four lane central Wellington road to find a nesting site, and were pretty determined to stay there. It was actually one of our overnight bulletin editors, Anna Chinn, who first called in the news of Wellington's waddling vagrants.

So they were being chased down and removed from the shop store near the capital's train station, not once - but twice.

The store's owner, Long Lin, lured them from under the shop with some of his fresh premium salmon.

We checked in with Mike just what happened to the penguins

He says he thought the 'Sushi penguins' tried FOUR times to return to buildings and streets close to where they were picked up the first time at the Sushi Bar.

They eventually got the message and didn't come back.

Mr Rumble hopes they managed to find a nesting place somewhere else, had two chicks, and all four are now somewhere in the Wellington Harbour.

If you want to see the antics of the penguins from back in July, head over to our facebook page facebook.com/morningreport