Are the female penguins still alive as of 2011? they must be pretty old. As this is endangered species I think it is essential that they breed them in captivity as an insurance population. If the females are too old to breed I think we in NZ should send some more females over to the zoo. Here in NZ we have a silly law that prevents yellow eyed and crested penguins being bred in captivity but allows blue penguins to be.
I think there's just one Fiordland crested penguin left at Taronga now.
As for the NZ "silly law", the three mainland penguins are only brought into captivity if they are rescued birds (i.e.injured or otherwise incapacitated). The little blues in NZ zoos are mostly supposed to be hold-only not breeders.
