Current view: Data table and detailed info
Taxonomic source(s)
Christidis, L. and Boles, W.E. 2008. Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Australia.
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.
SACC. 2005 and updates. A classification of the bird species of South America. Available at: https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm.
Turbott, E.G. 1990. Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand. Ornithological Society of New Zealand, Wellington.
IUCN Red List criteria met and history
Red List criteria met
Red List history
| Migratory status |
full migrant |
Forest dependency |
does not normally occur in forest |
| Land-mass type |
|
Average mass |
- |
Population justification:
The most recent population survey conducted in 2011 found 34,226 nests on the Antipodes (Hisock and Chilvers 2014); on the Bounty Islands there were an estimated 26,000 nests in the same year (Miskelly 2013), leading to an estimated 60,226 nests in total. This would equate to 120,452 nesting individuals, but it is assumed that only around 80% of mature individuals engage in breeding each year, so the number of mature individuals is estimated to number c.150,000.
Trend justification: Population trends indicate a severe decline between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s (Davis 2013). On the Bounty Islands, estimated numbers were 115,000 pairs (Robertson and van Tets 1982) in 1978, apparently declining to 28,000 pairs by 1997, representing a 75% decline (Taylor 2000). However, the 1978 numbers have recently been called into question (Wilson and Mattern 2019). Population surveys conducted in 1997 (Clarke et al. 1998), 2004 (de Roy and Amey 2004), 2014 (J. Amey, unpublished data), and 2019 (T. Mattern, unpublished data) indicate that parts of the Bounty Island population might actually have been relatively stable for the last two decades. However, as surveys covered only small portions of the Bounty Island archipelago, an ongoing population decline cannot be ruled out definitively.
On the Antipodes Islands an estimated 115,000 breeding pairs were recorded in 1978, which declined extremely rapidly to 52,000 pairs by 1995 (Taylor, 2000). The rate of decline appears to have subsequently slowed somewhat; between 1995 and 2011 the number of penguin nests declined by 23% (Hiscock and Chilvers 2014), although this is still equivalent to a 61% decline over three generations (36 years, based on methods in Bird et al. [2020]) in this population.
Overall it appears that the population decline apparent until the 1990s has since slowed somewhat, which corresponds to the trend observed in the sympatrically breeding Southern Rockhopper Penguins (Morrison et al. 2015). However, even if populations on Bounty Island had only declined from 28,000 pairs in 1978 to 26,000 pairs in 2011, the very rapid decline in the Antipodes still results in a decline of 52% over the past three generations (36 years). More reliable survey data is required to confirm the reduction in the rate of decline.
Country/territory distribution
Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBA)
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Erect-crested Penguin Eudyptes sclateri. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/erect-crested-penguin-eudyptes-sclateri on 25/11/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 25/11/2024.
