Ms Wasiak regularly visits a relatively remote beach about one kilometre from the Nobbies Reserve to collect plastic pollution, and has found a couple of plastic visors and multiple masks on the shoreline since the pandemic began.

Plastic pollution including discarded fishing line has long been found by rangers around the sensitive penguin colony, but the masks were particularly noticeable, she said.

She urged the public to cut the loops on any masks they throw away to prevent them harming wildlife.

If masks are in the ocean they are likely too big for little penguins to ingest, but there have been media reports of a Magellanic penguin in Brazil found dead with a mask in its stomach.

Last year the little penguins on Phillip Island had a breeding boom, with about 24,000 chicks hatching in the summer season.

This year’s final breeding count is not finished yet but the numbers are looking average, with about 20,000 chicks born. The total colony count is about 40,000, with 4000 birds recently recorded in a single night at the penguin parade.

Because of global warming, the East Australian Current – the largest ocean current close to the shores of the continent – is getting warmer.

Although it doesn’t enter the shallow Bass Strait, it still has a heating effect, and the water temperature in the strait is increasing.

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It was good news for the Phillip Island penguins because the small fish species they feed on seek out water at their optimum temperature and now arrive earlier at the penguin’s feeding grounds.

But as the strait continues to warm, fish species will move to cooler water and penguins will have to travel further for food.

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