The little blue penguins killed by the Rena's oil spill are being politicised in a deep sea oil protest.

Appearing along Auckland's Khyber Pass Road today are 150 original art prints of a penguin killed by Rena's oil.

They are accompanied by the message: ‘Rena did this. Deep sea oil drilling could be a thousand times worse.'

Greenpeace campaigner Louise Edge with the oiled bird portraits.

'This memorial to the 2,000 birds killed by the Rena disaster is also a stark reminder of the dangers of opening up New Zealand waters to deep sea oil drilling.” says Greenpeace campaigner Steve Abel.

The little blue penguin starring in the display was found dead and covered in oil on Matakana Island by Greenpeace volunteers.

The volunteers were helping the local iwi, Nga Hapu o te Moutere o Matakana, clean oil off their beaches following the October Rena spill.

A diving petrel was also found. In total, more than 2000 birds have died from the Rena oil disaster.

Auckland artists and Greenpeace volunteers came up with the concept of making ‘oil prints' with the birds and donated their time to create them.

The original ‘oil on canvas' prints will feature at a ‘pop up' gallery opening at 5pm at 2 Queen Street, Central Auckland.

The gallery will also screen a short film about the making of the bird prints, featuring a soundtrack donated by the band Radiohead.

The exhibition will be open daily from 9.30am-5.30pm until Friday, December 16.

While the environmental impacts of the Rena accident shocked New Zealanders, the 350 tonne spill was small in global terms.

The Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 leaked an estimated 627,000 tonnes of oil into the Gulf.

The Montara oil rig blowout in Western Australia in 2009 occurred at a depth of only 80 metres and it took two and a half months to get under control.

The Australian Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism estimates that the Montara oil leak could have been as much as 2000 barrels of oil per day, equating to about 26,000 tonnes.

The Montara blowout destroyed about 64,000 hectares of coral reefs in the Sawu Sea, with the damage being done by both the oil and the dispersant chemicals, including Corexit 9500 used to submerge the oil in the clean-up efforts.

Oil companies now prospecting in New Zealand waters have been involved in oil spills worldwide, including the Deepwater Horizon disaster and a recent spill off the coast of Brazil.

The Government has invited oil companies to drill in New Zealand waters at depths of up to 3km.

To date over 106,000 kiwis have signed Greenpeace's petition to stop deep sea oil drilling.

The Wildlife Response Centre dealing with the oiled Rena birds estimates that 20,000 seabirds were killed by the spill, based on US and UK studies which indicate that we only see one to ten per cent of the birds that are killed by an oil spill – the others simply die unseen at sea. More than 2,000 bird carcasses have been recovered. The same is thought to be true of other species. Following the Deepwater Horizon spill, only 101 dead whales were reported in the initial months following the spill. However a recent scientific study estimated that total number of dolphins and whales killed by that spill was approx 5,050.

A media briefing on the risks of deep sea oil drilling in NZ and an infographic showing the sites due to be opened for deep sea prospecting are available on the Greenpeace website www.greenpeace.org.nz/oilbriefing