Two University of Otago zoology graduates studied how visitors interacted with wildlife on the beach, what they did there and why they went there, over the summer of 2008 and 2009 after an earlier study found the penguins were under stress because of being disrupted by human visitors.
Master's student Aviva Stein presented the results of this study, which she carried out with Kate Beer, to the Yellow-eyed Penguin Symposium recently.
They questioned 266 visitors over the three months about their experience on the beach and compared the 2008-09 results with that of a similar study done in 2003. They found visitor numbers had increased by 20%.
They also discovered there had been a change in the type of visitor in that time from New Zealanders to international tourists, thanks mostly to a pointer in the Lonely Planet guidebook.
Despite the Department of Conservation's new lookout and signs warning people to stay 200m away from the penguins and walk to the hide to view them, tourists were still getting too close to the penguins as the birds tried to get from the water to their nests, Ms Stein said.
"There seemed to be a lack of understanding about conservation issues."
As a result of the findings, they recommended increasing visitor education and changing signs to make them clearer, she said.
"Right now it's a bit unclear, a lot of information on geology and ecology but the importance of viewing distance and etiquette is lost in the other information."
New signs needed to be more explicit and improve directions to the viewing hide, she said.
