Stewart Island/Rakiura Community Environment Trust chairwoman Shona Sangster said last month they received a report of five little blue penguins which had been killed by cats.
After showing the pictures to penguin expert Thomas Mattern, the trust believed the killings were the work of a feral cat.
They also got reports of two Stewart Island kiwi being chased by dogs at the same time.
She said although the trust had been doing its part by trapping feral cats and promoting kiwi-aversion training for pet dogs, residents and visitors should also help - keeping their dogs under control in the presence of wildlife and keeping domestic cats inside at night.
‘‘The trust are always concerned when we find our native birds being disturbed or even worse, killed.
‘‘We’ve put nearly 20 years of work into restoring habitat and removing predators that threaten them, so it is pretty gutting to find dead korora/little blue penguins like this.’’
Although she could not gauge whether there was an increase of incidents like those in the island in recent times, the number of dogs 0n the island had increased in the past two years.
Just in the past month, the trust volunteers caught 283 rats and five possums.
The trust was preparing an educational pamphlet for dog owners arriving with dogs on the ferry.
A Department of Conservation spokeswoman yesterday said while Doc was aware of the incident involving the death of five blue penguins, its technician believed there was insufficient evidence to say the killer was definitely a cat.
There were reports of dogs seen in the National Park but too little information to draw conclusions, they said.
