Rehabilitation Rebuild
Rehabilitation in Action
The OPERA team helps hundreds of penguins each year return to the wild. To ensure they can continue their vital work, their rehabilitation centre is in need of an upgrade.
That’s why we are launching a once-in-a-generation project: a new, purpose-built penguin rehabilitation and education centre designed to meet the recovery needs of Aotearoa’s native penguins.
You can help us help them
A critical phase of recovery
For more than 40 years, the penguin rehabilitation centre at The OPERA – The Otago Peninsula Eco Restoration Alliance, has been a quiet but crucial lifeline for some of Aotearoa’s most vulnerable penguins. Each year, sick, injured, and starving penguins, including precious hoiho (yellow-eyed penguins), kororā (little blue penguins), crested penguins and many other species, arrive in their care after receiving emergency treatment at Dunedin Wildlife Hospital, or being uplifted by the Department of Conservation.
Our team provides the specialised rehabilitation needed for penguins to gain weight, rebuild strength, and recover from illness and injury. This final phase of care is what turns survival into a true second chance. The OPERA prepares them not just to survive, but to thrive once they return to the wild.
Without this vital support, many of these penguins would never make it back to their ocean home.
The new state-of-the-art centre will include modern recovery spaces, splash pools, and viewing stations where visitors can learn about the penguins and see the work being done to care for and protect these rare and special birds.
The Centre
The refurbished space will also house educational spaces where visitors, volunteers, and school groups can learn the penguins’ stories and the importance of kaitiakitanga (guardianship).
The total cost of this project is significant. We need assistance to make it happen. Every contribution—large or small—helps us build a facility capable of giving these penguins the fighting chance they deserve.
What you’re funding is not just bricks and walls. You’re funding survival. Hope. And a future in which the hoiho and other species of penguins waddle along our shores for generations to come.
Together, we can create a centre worthy of the species that depend on it, sharing their stories and sharing in their survival, so they can get back home to the wild, where they belong.
Nga Mihi to our Donors
PENGUIN PAL
FEATHERED FRIEND
HABITAT HELPER
JUNIOR RANGER
Maria Varini
Pascal Vosicki
Karen Langkilde
KAITIAKI
YELLOW-EYED PENGUIN PARTNER
HOIHO HEROE
OTHER DONORS
Hannah Priest
Rebecca Thompson
Angela & Ross Murray
Help us help them
