Natural History Wanderings

The New York Times has a story on how a breed of territorial sheep dogs were used scare off foxes that had threatened a penguin population on an Australian Island. The Times reported

Foxes killed 180 penguins in that particular episode, in October 2004. But the toll on Middle Island, off Victoria State in southern Australia, kept rising. By 2005, the small island’s penguin population, which had once numbered 800, was below 10.

Today, their numbers are back in the triple digits, and much of the credit has gone to a local chicken farmer known as Swampy Marsh and his strong-willed sheepdogs.

Read full story at  Australia Deploys Sheepdogs to Save a Penguin Colony – The New York Times