Fears for world's rarest penguin as population plummets

Commercial fishing blamed for the crash in numbers of yellow-eyed penguin on a sanctuary island in New Zealand

Almost half the breeding population of the world's most endangered penguin species, the yellow-eyed penguin, has disappeared in one part of New Zealand and conservation groups believe commercial fishing is to blame.

The yellow-eyed penguin is endemic to New Zealand's South Island and sub-Antarctic islands, where there are just 1,600 to 1,800 left in the wild, down from nearly 7,000 in 2000.