Wildlife watching is an emerging ecotourism activity around the world. In Australia and New Zealand, night viewing of little penguins attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors per year. As penguins start coming ashore after sunset, artificial lighting is essential to allow visitors to view them in the dark. This alteration of the nightscape warrants investigation for any potential effects of artificial lighting on penguin behavior.

The little penguin is the smallest and the only penguin species whose activity on land is strictly nocturnal. Thirteen years of attendance data were used to study the effects of sun, moon, and artificial light on the attendance pattern at Phillip Island, Australia.

In this work, authors suggest that ocean currents may play a relevant role in determining the actual spatio-temporal scale under which reproductive timing in a marine predator, the Little penguin, has evolved to assure the necessary energy input to complete reproduction.