Published: Tuesday, June 26, 2012
It's time for a trip to the beach. I can't stay away any longer. So I meet Tom Dyer at my favorite spot in the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas: the bench in front of the penguin exhibit."This is probably the most popular bench in the Aquarium," he says.
There's only one problem with it. People keep standing in front of us, laughing and holding up phones to take pictures and videos of the penguins.
There are 29 of them hanging out at the beach and swimming in the 4,000-gallon saltwater sea -- 26 black-footed African penguins and three Chilean rockhoppers. Both species are tropical and are happy to be living in hot, humid Louisiana. The Africans are native to the southernmost tip of Africa, where temperatures can climb to 100 degrees. Some of these birds are just visiting New Orleans, though.
"We're foster-parenting four young males that are going to Ripley's in Myrtle Beach (S.C.)," Dyer says.
We watch them, and I can't stop smiling.
I have loved these goofy little guys since I first visited them in 1991, a few months after the Aquarium opened. If they were in the circus, they'd be the clowns, tumbling one after the other out of a tiny car driven by Dyer. His title is "senior aviculturist," but he's really the ringleader of the penguins.
"Look at Dennis," he says. "I don't know how many times I've told him he can't fly."
Dennis is one of the rockhoppers that were added to the exhibit in 1996. They're easy to spot because of their reddish beaks and the spiky yellow feathers sticking out from their heads that make them look like pint-sized punk rockers.
Dennis is standing on a ledge flapping his flippers, trying to impress Rocky, the female. There has always been competition between Dennis and Bunny, the other male rockhopper.
"Dennis thinks he's Superman," I say.
The Africans show off in the water and congregate on the beach, nibbling on plants and letting out the raucous brays that give them their other name: "jackass penguins." They're about the same size as the rockhoppers but have a more understated look, with bodies and heads that are "banded" or dappled black and white. Dyer recognizes every one of them.
Ernie turned 30 in January, he tells me. He has lived twice the average life span of an African penguin.
"The only thing wrong with Ernie is that he has cataracts," he says. "At feeding time he just stands there with his neck stretched out and his mouth open, waiting. He looks like an Audubon print."
Dyer catches me up on the latest gossip. Where there are penguins, there is always drama. They supposedly mate for life, but sometimes stuff happens.
"Voodoo and Amquel have been together for over a decade, but then we got this big, strong handsome bird from the New England Aquarium," he says. "That knocked Voodoo's moral compass off."
Now, she goes from the home they share to the pad of her new suitor.
"Amquel is not taking it well. He sits right outside the cave and brays," Dyer says.
While we sit watching their escapades, he tells me the sad future that likely awaits penguins in the wild. These guys don't know how lucky they are.
"In 1910, there were between one-and-a-half million and three million African penguins," he says. "Now, there are about 81,000."
African penguins went on the endangered species list in 2010. The rockhoppers are on the threatened list. Of the 18 species of penguins, five are endangered and eight are threatened or vulnerable. The causes of their diminished numbers are many.
"Overfishing is a huge problem," Dyer says. "The penguins have to work harder and swim farther to find food, so they're not living as long."
They have also been the victims of oil spills.
"Birds that get oiled have a much lower success rate raising chicks to adulthood," he says.
The problem of getting oiled has become more serious for Africans because the area where they nest has become a big shipping lane.
"They're building super ports next to colonies and rookeries," Dyer says. "There's always going to be a little oil in the water, and because the penguins are always preening themselves, that's all it takes."
Visitors ask him why zoos and aquariums don't raise penguins and release them. But that wouldn't work.
"There's no room in the world for these guys," he says. "I hate being a pessimist about their state in the wild, but it just isn't good."
There is hope for them in aquariums and zoos, though. The Aquarium of the Americas is part of the Associations of Zoos and Aquariums' Species Survival Plan which aims to ensure the survival of various wildlife species through managed breeding programs.
Many of the penguins in this exhibit are old. The last baby hatched in 2001, when a little ball of fluff made her surprise appearance. Amquel and Voodoo were supposed to be sitting on two fake eggs, but somehow one of the decoys disappeared, and Voodoo laid an egg to replace it. The chick hatched on Chinese New Years in the year of the snake, so she was named Snake.
When the exhibit opened in 1990, the penguins could pair off the way Amquel and Voodoo did -- by just having a thing for each other -- but now Dyer has to play matchmaker.
"The Species Survival Plan dictates what birds may produce chicks," he says. "They have each penguin's genealogy, and they're trying to make sure we have a great gene pool in this country."
Two young Africans, Millicent and Nelson, came from the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo in 2008 to help revitalize the colony.
"Millicent is a real doll. She's such a girly-girl," Dyer says.
She has fallen for Puddles, but Dyer feels she's a little young for romance. "Of course, any dad is going to tell you that," he says.
Nelson is old enough to be a daddy, and he has his beady little eye on Evinrude, but so far she is playing hard to get. Still, Dyer has high hopes for them.
"There's a nice honeymoon suite on the third floor with a pool. Dimmer switch. Barry White CD," he jokes. "She'll be putty in his hands."
The whole time we're talking, Dennis keeps moving his flippers up and down. He does it for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, a half hour. Finally, he walks to the edge of the ledge, flaps frantically, and plunges into the water. Super-penguin! Rocky follows him, clearly impressed.
"Everything they do is just so funny," Dyer says. "That's why we're doing everything we can to make sure the world still has them."
The penguins are fed every day at 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. See them at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, which is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. this summer.
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