On a small rocky island in Victoria, Australia, huge white dogs protect little blue penguins.

Along the coast of the city of Warrnambool, on Middle Island, lives a group of very cute and tiny residents; the island is the only place in Australia where you can find the blue penguin, the smallest penguin in the world, with an average height of 30 cm and weighing just over 1 kg.

Since 1991, tidal patterns have briefly created a sand bridge each year that allows access to Middle Island from the mainland; the path was quickly discovered by foxes who began to devastate the population of these birds, which usually nest on the ground.

It was then that a local chicken farmer named Swampy Marsh used his vast experience with birds to defeat the foxes. Marsh had always relied on large dogs to protect his flock, specifically Maremma Sheepdogs, which are known to be excellent flock protectors. He figured that since the little penguins were equally defenseless, the same protection scheme could work for them.

And the idea went ahead, although officially no dogs were allowed on the island, the gravity of the little penguins’ situation convinced the Warrnambool city council to try the method proposed by Marsh, who soon began working with his dog Oddball.

The success was immediate and completely changed the pattern of foxes entering the island and eventually led to the creation of the Middle Island Project , which breeds and trains dogs for use in protecting the penguins. Between 2006 and 2017, the first two official guard dogs, Eudy and Tula, ensured that no fox attacks occurred, and the number of penguins on the island grew considerably.

In fact, the dogs do not attack the foxes, they just stay on the island in pairs and if they smell one of them, even from a distance, their deep, low barks are enough to scare the predators away so that they give up on attacking.