Middle Island Penguin Colony

Middle Island lies just off Warrnambool's Hopkins Point and is home to a colony of Australian little penguins — the world's smallest penguin species, standing about 33 centimetres tall. The island is managed as a nature reserve and is accessible only by guided tour during the breeding season.

The Maremma dog guardian programme is one of the most unusual conservation success stories in Australia and has been studied worldwide. Visitors to Warrnambool can sometimes see the current dog guardian on the island from the beach at Hopkins Point. Guided tours to the island itself run periodically during the season — book through the Warrnambool Visitor Centre.

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A story
The little penguin colony on Middle Island was nearly wiped out by foxes in the early 2000s, falling from around 800 birds to just four. A local chicken farmer proposed an unusual solution: deploying Maremma sheepdogs trained from puppyhood to live with the penguins and bond with them as their flock. The programme worked — the colony now numbers nearly 200 birds and no penguins have been taken by foxes since the dogs were introduced. The story was made into the 2015 Australian film Oddball.

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