Tauranga National Oiled Wildlife Centre

A little blue penguin is cleaned of oil. It was rescued after being coated in oil, spilled from the container ship Rena which ran aground on the Astrolab Reef, about 20 kilometres form the Port of Taurnaga on October 5. The National Oiled Wildlife Centre, set up in Tauranga, includes a processing room, washing room, morgue and post mortem tent and rehabilitation clean room as well as swimming pools. Two weeks after the ship ran aground more than 50 little blue penguins have been cleaned while 1200 dead seabirds have been collected. Greenpeace New Zealand is campaigning against deep sea oil drilling off New Zealand's coasts, on the basis that such activity could well lead to a far worse spill than that from the Rena. The setting up of the final frontiers in oil exploration will also only make the climate crisis worse.