Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe VICTOR HARBOR, Australia, March 22 (UPI) -- An Australian woman said she wants the causeway to Granite Island closed at night to stop a recent spate of penguin thefts. Dorothy Longden, a coordinator at the Granite Island Penguin Center, said the number of penguins dropped from more than 1,500 a decade ago to only 146 as of last August and six of the birds were stolen recently from the southern Australia island, The Sunday Mail, Brisbane, Australia, reported. Advertisement "We have to be serious about the penguins we have left. If we close the causeway off we might stand a chance," Longden said. "We started a petition in January and have more than 1,000 signatures, we want about 2,000 altogether." "People climb over the 6-foot-high concrete fence and steal the penguins," she said. "Two that were stolen, someone actually destroyed their burrows to find them and then took them. "We care for them here, these are the sick and injured, they've all got names so we know when we come in in the morning if any have been taken."
