Burnie councillor slams lack of protection for little penguins after 17 killed in one attack

Burnie councillor Ken Dorsey said the council was sitting back and "doing nothing" to protect its coastal creatures.

It comes after 17 Little Penguins were found dead on West Beach, on Tasmania's north west coast, last Friday in a suspected dog attack, despite the area being a dog-free zone.

Cr Dorsey said he had been pushing the council for months to do more to protect the area, including by proposing new pictorial signage at the August 2021 council meeting, but that he had been knocked back.

"We declared the city to be a penguin sanctuary, but we've done nothing but say that," he said.

"We know there are feral cats in the rookery, and we did nothing. We can't up patrols or increase monitoring with cameras ... so we do nothing.

"One of the arguments to not do more than what we're doing is that we have to protect whole coast. We can't even do West Beach, and they're worried about doing everywhere?"

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Cr Dorsey said he understood the council was in the process of working with UTAS for some new, comprehensive signs around West park which highlight that the area was a protected zone.

However, he said what was actually needed, and could be implemented right away, was new basic signs telling residents to keep their dogs away because of the penguins, and showing that fines would occur otherwise.

Currently, the management of dogs in council areas is guided by the Dog Control Act 2000.

This lays out a framework for how councils can administer dog control laws in their municipalities, including through the issuing of fines and the enforcement of the restriction of dogs in protected areas.

Burnie City Council mayor Steve Kons said the deaths of the 17 penguins was terrible. He said he wanted to have more understanding of the responsibility of the Department of Natural Resources in these areas.

He said he also wanted to get a "fuller understanding" of how regulations could be policed, and to engage with the council over what the current regulations looked like so that an informed decision could be made.

"On the other side of the coin, we can't have people there 24/7 policing the beach," he said.