Middle Island Project coordinator Trish Corbett said her team had found evidence of about 10 penguins breeding this season, up from the 2019/20 penguin season which recorded no breeding.

Despite the impending population boost, the project team suspect environmental factors could be impacting the colony.

"We think there's between 70-100 penguins in the colony but of those actually breeding, we estimate it to be around 10," she said. "Not as many come in to breed as we were hoping, but it's better than last year.

"We certainly think there's potentially not a good food source in the ocean for them. The penguins that are breeding are in areas of the island that are quite tricky to get to so we can't weigh them to see if their food source is a problem."

The penguins are now preparing to moult and burrow for the next three weeks after an unpredictable season severely affected monitoring efforts.

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The penguins will moult all feathers, regrow them then extract an oil to waterproof the new feathers.

Each penguin will put on about 300 grams which they will lose in the burrowing period that lasts for about three weeks.

"The burrowing starts any time now and we expect to start seeing penguin feathers out the front of burrows," Dr Corbett said. "That will be a good indicator of the number of penguins."

The Maremmas have been out in force since September to guard the penguins on Middle Island with no evidence of any deaths found.

"It's fantastic," Dr Corbett said. "It will still take a while for the penguin colony to recover from the massacres.

"But is also seems like there is other environmental factors affecting the colony such as their food supply."

Dr Corbett said there had been plenty of shearwaters breeding on Middle Island this season.

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic meant the Middle Island Project's Meet the Maremmas fundraising program was cancelled and the dedicated volunteers had not been able to help count the penguins.

Dr Corbett organised a GoFundMe page to raise $25,000 to provide training and care for the guardian dogs.

"We're currently sitting at over $36,000 and we've had people donating from all around the world," she said.

"It's been a crazy season with Covid. There's a small group of about eight of us who have been doing the count each year and we have been rotating the count.

"But it's pretty unfortunate to not have volunteers out with us."

To donate to the GoFundMe head to au.gofundme.com/f/the-middle-island-penguin-project

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