Photo: Thomas Mattern
A third of the world's penguins live on and around New Zealand's shores.
Some species are listed as endangered, including erect-crested penguins, Kathryn's subject of conversation with Thomas Mattern.
Thomas recently went on a six week mission by yacht to the Antipodes and the even more remote and rarely-visited Bounty Islands, trying to establish how the little-known-about erect-crested penguin is actually doing.
Thomas Mattern is Research Fellow in the School of Zoology at the University of Otago, part of the team at the Tawaki Project and the Global Penguin Society.
