The Clever Evolutionary Engineering That Keeps Penguins Ice-Free

 

 Aurelien Guichard

 

Written by Michael Byrne, Editor  

February 29, 2016

 

Penguin life would be pretty rough without some built-in deicing capabilities. Given that some large part of a penguin's routine existence involves entering and exiting water that's below the freezing point in an Arctic climate, you could even say that penguin life would be impossible. The polar lifestyle isn't for just any old bird—penguins are adapted in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand.

To that end, researchers from Beihang University in China have published a new paper in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. detailing how the icephobicity of Humboldt penguins actually works, physically. As it turns out, the answer is basically Velcro. What the group discovered (via electron scanning microscope) is that the surfaces of the penguins' feathers are covered in a layer of dense microscopic fibers. These fibers work together in rather ingenious ways to keep water out and air in.

The problem, as research has shown, is that it takes more than hydrophobicity (water proofing) to yield icephobicity. At a certain very cold point, hydrophobic materials can no longer be counted on to be hydrophobic. Droplets that would normally roll off the material begin to coalesce, eventually forming sheets of ice. Somehow, this doesn't happen with penguins.

"Penguins, which live in the world’s coldest environments, have a thick layer of feathers that prevent the penetration of cold seawater to the skin and play a role in insulation," the Beihang researchers said. "Much effort has been devoted to investigating how the morphology of the contour, downy afterfeathers function as thermal insulators and their material composition, as well as how this affects the mechanical performance of penguins."

"As they are the fastest swimming birds, frost and ice can be seldom found on penguins’ feathers," the study continues. "That is to say, their feathers exhibit excellent antifrosting and anti-icing properties. However, there is little research focusing on the wettability and antifrosting or anti-icing properties of penguin’s feathers."

The icephobicity of penguin feathers is still more than just a single bonus layer of fibers. These microscale fibers in turn have their own nanoscale structures. The result is a hierarchy of interlocking barbs at the finest scales. These barbs come together to lock in tiny pockets of air (as below), which help insulate the birds but also prevent supercooled liquid from reaching its solid surfaces (from which the penguin might lose heat as skinbeasts like you or I would). Nature is good at stuff.

Image: Jiang et al

To really test this idea out, the researchers made their own material based on the same principles. They were able to accomplish this thanks to a really cool technique known as electrospinning. The basic idea is to take some polymer material and apply electric charges to it in just the right way as to draw out nanoscale fibers one by on. Imagine atomic-scale plastic string cheese pulled apart with electromagnetism instead of little-kid fingers. The result: a polyimide nanofiber membrane.

The membrane functioned as intended, providing a both solid demonstration that their penguin feather model achieves icephobicity as predicted and an assurance that the same idea will be making its way into ice-proofing technologies of the near future.

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#Wolf of the Day

 

Varg fokuserar by Mattias Ohlsén

#Penguins of the Day

 

The Three (African) Stooges by Laura Nicholls

#Penguin of the Day

 

Guanaco e Magellanic pinguino

SANCCOB helping to address decline of African penguin population

Sunday 28 February 2016

Berenice Moss

Baby Penguins are being taken care of at SANCCOB in Cape Town.(Twitter@BereniceMoss)

A special group of Penguin babies are receiving extra special treatment at the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) in Cape Town.  

The Non-Governmental Organisation's African Penguin chick season has begun and the first of 31 eggs have hatched.

Pushed to the brink of extinction, each bird is invaluable. The eggs were taken from nests built outside the protected area of the Boulders Beach breeding colony at Simons Town.

Thus far three have hatched and the staff is keeping a close eye on them.  The chick rearing unit is a sterile environment where the chicks are housed in incubators exactly like the ones used for new born babies. The chicks weigh between 66 and 85 grams.

They are fed six times a day with a special formula made up of blended fish, water and a variety of vitamins.

Supervisor at the facility Romy Klusener prepares the special meals for the chicks.  It is no easy task, special care and patience is required as the chicks can get infections.   She uses a syringe to feed them and during this time also cleans the umbilical areas.

"It is a very tedious job and we are here at 0530 in the morning with these chicks. Their first feed is at 6 in the morning and our last feed is at 9 at night; so it is a really long day but it is all for a good cause," says Klusener.

The African penguins are an endangered species

The Chick Bolstering Project (CBP) in partnership with various organisations like Cape Nature and SANParks, was started a decade ago in an effort to boost dwindling African Penguin numbers.
Over the past 10 years SANCCOB has successfully released almost 4 000 penguin chicks into the wild.  Klusener says research has shown that the hand reared chicks at the facility fared just as well as the wild birds raised by their parents.

"The African penguins are an endangered species and the chick rearing unit is part of the CBP which is your chick bolstering project which was established in 2006 and this is to help with the drastic decline in the African penguins’ population in the wild. We sitting at 2% of what we used to be 80 years ago , we were sitting at a much higher rate so we have 2% left of our total population,  it has gotten to the point where every bird counts. The chick bolstering project and the chick rearing unit, we take eggs and abandoned chicks from the wild we hand raise them and place them back in the wild."

The cost of raising and rehabilitating the endangered species does not come cheap.  Klusener says they need all the help they can get. "We rely on donations, it does not matter how big or small, every bit counts. We also run an adoption special, you don’t unfortunately get the penguin but the money is used to run the facility and the rehabilitation process. So you get a nice adoption pack and a picture of your penguin and a little note saying thank you for the adoption and we also open for tours 365 days a year."

Healthy penguins breed up to three times a year and with 28 more eggs at the facility, the staff at SANCCOB could soon have their hands full raising these waddling wanders.



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Newest penguin at Camden aquarium prepares to join his colony

KEVIN C. SHELLY//PHILLYVOICE

Topper is the newest member of the African penguin colony at Adventure Aquarium on the Camden waterfront. 

February 27, 2016

When Topper's molt is over, he – or she – will join other African penguins

By Kevin C. Shelly
PhillyVoice Staff

 

Topper, a fledgling African penguin born Christmas Eve at Adventure Aquarium on Camden’s waterfront, is making cameo appearances most days and getting ready to join his colony.
 
The burly baby – at more than five pounds, he’s heavier than some of the adult penguins – is putting on weight as his down-covered body grows out a new suit of waterproof feathers.

Right now, he – or maybe she, as there is no way of telling until Topper is older and has blood drawn and analyzed – is about 50 percent through molting, his front and face covered in sleek feathers, his back still a powder puff.

Which is why the staff and Jennifer Duffy, the senior biologist at the aquarium, are making certain Topper stays strictly in hand during brief solo public appearances – just after most feeding times for the colony.

The colony has access to a pool, but down and water just do not mix. So, for now, no swimming for Topper. Besides, at this stage in Topper’s development, the penguin doesn’t yet know it can swim.
Duffy said Topper will be gently coaxed into the water when the time comes, which could be just two weeks, or more likely a month.

It will all depend on how fast the down switches over to feathers, she said, and on Topper’s temperament.

Meanwhile, the bird is getting acclimated to the aquarium and keepers, who will act as an extension of the colony.

Already famous online, Topper stretched his wings on Saturday under the watchful eye of keepers.
Topper waddled about, making pleading sounds for attention and a feeding.

Topper checked out twigs, leaves and a reporter’s pen, none as palatable as the 15 to 20 pounds of whole small fish consumed every day.

The bird is the ninth for parents Minnie, 19, and Kamikaze, 20, both of whom are from the original stock of African penguins brought to the aquarium. Overall, the colony has produced 20 chicks.
Duffy said 20 years is an average life expectancy for the penguins in the wild, though captive birds often live until they are 30 because there are no predators, they are fed routinely and monitored by veterinarians.

Topper weighed just a few ounces when hatched from an egg about twice the size of a chicken’s.
The baby bird remained with Minnie – 5 shows on her wing band – and Kamikaze – his band reads 18 – for weeks, but membership in a captive colony requires learning to be fed by keepers, which requires socialization with humans.

While captive colonies cannot be released into the wild because they have lost their fear of humans, the captive birds do assure a genetic fallback should some sort of penguin apocalypse crash the wild population, explained Duffy.

The aquarium and other captive facilities are part of the Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s African penguin Species Survival Plan, providing a diverse DNA base among the 800 captive birds in the states should seed stock be needed.

While there are perhaps 200,000 in the wild, African penguins are endangered, through their smaller colony sizes (larger colonies provide greater protection), habitat loss, proximity to shipping channels and oil spills in their native South Africa, explained Duffy.

The aquarium also raises money for natural conservation initiatives for the birds in their native habitat.

And while Topper is only briefly on view at the moment, his colony of African penguins was joined on Dec. 28 by a small colony of  little blue penguins, which hail from Australia and New Zealand.

The adult birds – more slate gray than blue – are more vocal in making calls and swimming than their African cousins.

Megan Rion and her husband, Charlie Schwinger, brought their son, Jameson, and their son's friends, to the aquarium for his eighth birthday on Saturday, in part because of the blue penguins.

“We love it,” said the Morrisville, Bucks County mom.

“It’s an awesome aquarium,” added Rion, who will be back to see Topper since the family bought a seasonal pass.

For information about visiting, click here.

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This Week's Pencognito!

Please visit Jen and all the penguins by clicking this link!

As Oceans Warm, Little Penguins Are Left Hungry

The world’s smallest penguin is struggling to find fish in warmer waters

(Marc Dozier/Corbis)

By Danny Lewis

smithsonian.com
February 26, 2016 

 

Australia’s little penguins aren’t as well-known as the koala or the kangaroo, but they are cute enough to go head-to-head with these icons of the outback. In recent years, scientists have grown concerned about the world’s tiniest penguin as their populations have steadily declined. Now, a new report suggests that rapid changes in the ocean’s temperature may be partly to blame as the warmer waters make the little penguin’s preferred prey more scarce.

The little penguin, also known as the “fairy penguin,” is the world’s smallest penguin, weighing roughly two pounds and standing less than a foot tall. Found in southern Australia and New Zealand, the little penguins feed mainly off of small fish and ocean-going creatures, like sardines, anchovies, and krill. Normally, the little penguin’s prey thrives off of nutrients and plankton stirred up by the East Australian Current each spring, but in recent years these waters have grown warmer, driving away the temperature-sensitive little fish and leaving the little penguins struggling to find food, Devin Powell reports for National Geographic.

“We’re seeing that warm years are quite bad for the penguins, and it’s not hard to see that if the temperature keeps going up, things might get worse,” Carroll tells Powell.

While scientists aren’t sure why the East Australian Current is heating up, it’s happening fast. Overall, the current’s temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1950s, which suggests that it could be a result of climate change, Emily DeMarco writes for SFGate. Yet, the powerful annual current is warming two- to three-times faster as the ocean’s surface, according to Carroll.

That might be enough to change the migration patterns of the penguins’ prey—influencing when the little fish show up in the area and how long they stick around.

“It’s really important that we understand what might happen to these ecosystems as these systems change,” Carroll tells DeMarco.

To figure out how the little penguins were coping with the changes in their environment, DeMarco and her colleagues monitored little penguins as they hunted over the course of three  breeding seasons from 2012 to 2014. The researchers strapped GPS trackers to the tiny penguins backs along with accelerometers, devices that measured their body movements (and the reason your smartphone knows that you’ve turned it on its side), which let them know when their subjects were just swimming around or when they were on the hunt, Powell writes.

The movement data showed that the penguins often avoided warmer waters, where they might find more fish. And during years when the water was warmer overall, the penguins ended up catching less fish altogether.

While some predators adjust their own hunting patterns to match their prey’s, the little penguins are too small to travel very far. During breeding seasons, the penguins only travel up to 15 miles a day, making it difficult to find new hunting grounds, DeMarco writes.

Vanishing prey isn’t the little penguin’s only problem: the penguins are also a favorite food for animals like seals, foxes, cats and dogs. But with oceanic temperatures in eastern Australia projected to rise up to nine degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, the penguins may be left hungry with increasing frequency.

“I wouldn't say which factor [threatening penguins] is the most important,” conservation biologist Dee Boersma, who wasn't involved in the study, tells Powell. “But climate change is going to be a big problem for penguins.”


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New penguin chick at San Francisco's Cal Academy

On Thursday, a new penguin chick at San Francisco's Cal Academy was examined during a live video on Periscope.

Thursday, February 25, 2016 


 

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) --

What do you call a baby penguin? Generally, it's either a chick or nestling. But now at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, you can call the newest member of the penguins by his name.

 

Biologists from the California Academy of Sciences hold a new African penguin chick that recently hatched as part of the aquarium's Species Survival Plan program Feb. 18, 2016. (Photo by California Academy of Sciences)

"The decision was made that this little man is going to be named Parker after Golden Gate Park, where he's living here at Steinhart, and we are in Golden Gate Park," said one of the experts at the Cal Academy.

In the video above you can watch the Cal Academy's Periscope video from Parker's examination.

Parker is the sixth of its species to hatch in the Cal Academy's new Golden Gate Park facility, which reopened in 2008.

Visitors can view the rest of the penguin colony anytime on a live webcam, where live feedings are broadcast twice a day at 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.

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#Penguin of the Day

 

Rockhopper penguin by Mark Dumont

#Penguins of the Day (Newbies at the Cincinnati Zoo)

 

Little Blue Penguin chick by Mark Dumont

 

Little Blue Penguin chick by Mark Dumont

The World's Smallest Penguin May Be In Danger

Warming waters may be making it harder for the little penguin of Australia to hunt, preliminary research suggests.

 
Little penguins, also called fairy penguins, head toward their nesting burrows in Victoria, Australia.

Photograph by Tui De Roy, Minden Pictures/Corbis
PUBLISHED Wed Feb 24 2016
 

The world's tiniest penguin may be in big trouble.

Warming ocean waters could make finding food increasingly difficult for the little penguin, Eudyptula minor, which stands less than a foot (0.3 meter) tall. 

Because their prey is sensitive to heat, “we’re seeing that warm years are quite bad for the penguins, and it’s not hard to see that if the temperature keeps going up, things might get worse,” says Gemma Carroll, a graduate student at Macquarie University in Sydney. 

Though perhaps not as beloved as koalas or kangaroos, little penguins are some of Australia’s most charismatic creatures. 

Many live in island colonies along the country’s eastern and southern coasts, where tourists delight in nightly penguin parades as the birds waddle up on shore.  

But in general the creatures are homebodies, venturing out from their colonies mainly to hunt fish. (See also"Penguin Numbers Plummeting—Whales Partly to Blame?")  

Concerned about declines in populations of little penguins—also called fairy penguins—over the past few decades, Carroll has been visiting and tracking a group of birds on Montague Island for three years. She presented her results this week at the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences meeting in New Orleans. 

Life for little penguins is made possible by the East Australian Current, a great rush of water from the tropics that stirs up the seafloor in the spring.  

Plankton feed on a swirl of nutrients from the bottom, becoming in turn a meal for bigger critters in the local food chain. This banquet of life nourishes the sardines on which little penguins dine. 

Penguins Beating the Heat? July 26, 2007—For Antarctica's penguins, the global-warming plot thickens: Some species seem to be adapting to the heat, while others are experiencing a foreboding population decline.

The East Australian current has been strengthening as temperatures in surface waters it feeds have climbed more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) over the second half of the 20th century, which is thought to be connected to climate change. That's much faster than the global average for sea surface warming. (See "Penguins That Weathered Past Climate Change Suffer This Time.") 

In Hot Water

Concerned about this influx of heat, Carroll strapped GPS sensors to about 60 wild birds from 2012 to 2014. She also outfitted them with accelerometers that detected their body movements.  

A computer program based on data from captive birds at the Sydney Zoo deciphered those movements, flagging each time a wild penguin caught a fish. (See "Our Favorite Penguin Pictures: Fuzzy Chicks, Expert Divers, More.") 

Penguins prowling for fish, the data showed, tended to shy away from warmer waters. “Penguins always seem to make a beeline for waters that are cooler" and likely to have more fish. 

In warmer years, moreover, the penguins caught fewer fish in November and December, during the Australian summer.  

Carroll said she suspects that warmer waters also may change when sardines arrive or spend their time, making hunting more challenging. 

“The fish have a very narrow preference for temperature,” she says.

"A Big Problem"

She cautioned that more work remains to be done, and that climate change is not the only threat facing the penguins.  

Others include human activities, as well as booming predator populations such as native seals and animals introduced by people, including cats, dogs, and foxes. 

Dee Boersma, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, has recorded declines in Magellanic penguins in Argentina, partly due to them having to travel farther to find food.  

“I wouldn't say which factor [threatening penguins] is the most important,” says Boersma, who wasn't involved in the new research. 

“But climate change is going to be a big problem for penguins.” 

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Happy HEAT: More than 150,000 penguin parents huddle together to keep their young chicks warm in spectacular images

• Astonishing images show between 150,000 and 250,000 King Penguins huddled together on island of South Georgia
• Nature photographer Roie Galitz, from Tel Aviv, Israel, described the scene as 'penguins as far as the eye could see'
• Just like Emperor Penguins, as in the film Happy Feet, King Penguins gather to insulate their babies against the cold
• Baby chicks can be seen huddled among the crowds of adults, small brown patches of fluff in the chilly wasteland

By Imogen Calderwood For Mailonline

Published: 124 February 2016 

Spectacular images show the gigantic scale of penguin parenthood when part of one of the world's largest King Penguin colonies. Hundreds of thousands of penguins huddle together for warmth in the harsh wintery conditions, just like the Emperor Penguins immortalised in the animated film Happy Feet.

On the island of South Georgia, in the southern Atlantic Ocean, these penguins are grouped together to keep their newborns from freezing to death. Nature photographer Roie Galitz, 35, captured the momentous occasion, at which between 150,000 and 250,000 King Penguins gathered. 

Community: Hundreds of thousands of King Penguins huddle together for warmth in the harsh conditions on the island of South Georgia

Parenthood: An adult penguin feeds a morsel of food to its chick, which is still just a ball of brown fluff and requires round-the-clock care

Spectacular: Nature photographer Roie Galitz, 35, captured the occasion, at which between 150,000 and 250,000 King Penguins gathered

'It was overwhelming,' said Roie, from Tel Aviv in Israel. 'I stopped and just looked at those staggering numbers, penguins as far as the eye could see.

'Every beach landing just showed more and more King Penguins.'

Baby chicks can be seen huddled among the crowds of adult penguins, just small brown patches of fluff in the chilly wasteland. 

While adult penguins have an outer layer of oily feathers, the chicks are born with just layers of downy fluff and so aren't able to keep themselves warm. They require round-the-clock care for the first three weeks, and take on average between 10 and 13 months to raise. 

Although accurate counts haven't been carried out in recent years, St Andrews Bay on South Georgia has a single colony which has grown to around 500,000 King Penguins at the busiest times of year, according to AnimalCorner.co.uk. 

King Penguins are the world's second largest penguin, and are sometimes confused with the larger Emperor Penguin.   

Needy: Baby chicks can be seen huddled among the crowds of adult penguins, just small brown patches of fluff in the chilly wasteland

Penguin antics: After photographer Roie Galitz, from Tel Aviv, captured the scale of the scene, he focused in on some of the individuals

Wasteland: Two King Penguins can be seen standing proudly away from their flock on the island of South Georgia, in the Atlantic Ocean

Frosty: King Penguins flock together to share body heat, just like Emperor Penguins as immortalised in the animated film Happy Feet

Overcrowding: Parents and babies flock together in their hundreds of thousands, to protect the offspring from the island's bitter cold

Sensational: The vast landscapes of the island in the southern Atlantic Ocean make an ideal backdrop for Galitz's nature photography

Greedy: A baby King Penguin tries to find out if its parent has any more food for it - the chicks require round-the-clock care when newborn

Milling around: For at least the first three weeks of the babies' lives, they require constant care to stop them freezing to death on the island

Vast crowds: Between 150,000 and 250,000 King Penguins are estimated to have been at the gathering on South Georgia island

Frozen: Adult penguins have an outer layer of oily feathers, but chicks are born with just layers of downy fluff and so can't keep warm

Wildlife haven: King Penguins are the world's second largest penguin, and are sometimes confused with the larger Emperor Penguin

Adventurous: Photographer Roie Galitz was determined to capture the enormous scale of the penguin gathering on South Georgia

Group: Galitz said: 'It was overwhelming - I stopped and just looked at those staggering numbers, penguins as far as the eyes could see'

Tiring:Spectacular images show the gigantic scale of penguin parenthood when part of one of the worlds largest King Penguin colonies

Giant assembly: It is estimated that between 150,000 and 250,000 King Penguins gather for the event on the island in the southern Altantic
 

Vulnerable: A line of chicks can be seen among the giant grouping, encouraged by their parents to huddle with each other for warmth

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Watch a Cuddly Baby Penguin Struggle to Survive in its Chilly Home

Three Emperor Penguin chicks use their parents as shields against the bitter cold. Photo: Frederique Olivier/John Downer Productions

 

 

A new PBS show, airing tomorrow night, tracks the dramatic first months of a young Emperor Penguin’s life—from birth on the ice, to a brave seaward migration.

By Emma Bryce

February 23, 2016

Let's get one thing straight: A young penguin’s life isn’t all just song and dance à la Happy Feet. These fluffy babies actually have to fight beak and claw to survive in their frigid Antarctic homes—a story told in the new PBS Nature show "Snow Chick." The documentary, narrated by actress Kate Winslet, tracks the youngest and smallest member of a colony of Emperor Penguins: a tiny chick that is just as adorable as its cartoon counterpart, but is born into a very real world of wild snowstorms, absentee parents, and villainous “chick snatchers.”
Here are five key moments in the life of a baby penguin, as explored in the show:

Born in the Depths of Winter

Emperor chicks hatch during the harsh Antarctic winter (they're the only penguin species that do so), taking refuge in the father’s downy pouch while the mother goes fishing out at sea. In the meantime, fathers produce a milk-like liquid from their throat glands to nourish the chicks after birth. Weary but with bellies full of fish, the mothers return to meet and feed their chicks for the first time—no easy feat in a colony of up to 5,000 birds. To ease the confusion, the females use a unique braying call to find their partners and newborns.

Beyond the Pouch

After just a few weeks the chicks leave the pouch to try out their flippers on the ice. Now the parents’ biggest challenge is to guard them from other females. Penguins that have failed to breed will stop at nothing to steal a chick and pass it off as their own.

First Day of School

Eventually the growing babies are coaxed out of their pouch cribs completely, and are made to join a penguin “day-care”—a fluffy huddle of chicks that shield each other against the chill. This allows parents to fish together for the first time, doubling the amount they can feed to their ravenous offspring.

This chick loves to strut—snow or shine. Photo: Marty Passingham/John Downer Productions

Teenage Wasteland

The parents then go out on a long foraging trip to treat their ballooning chicks to one last feast. Afterward, they turn on their tails and leave, after five months of dedicated caregiving. At first the abandoned youth huddle together, seemingly bewildered—until instinct kicks in, and they begin their first-ever migration across the wind-whipped ice.

Leap of Faith

Using their beaks to brush out their down along the way, Emperor chicks slowly reveal their striking adult plumage. It’s the final goodbye to their childhood: Once they reach the Antarctic Ocean, their adult adventure begins. At just 60 percent of their adult weight, the juveniles jump into the sea, where they’ll spend four years swimming, eating, and sleeping on the polar waters. Months of dedicated parental care pays off for this species: About 95 percent of Emperor chicks survive their first year. Eventually, they return to their birthplace, ready to breed and begin the entire cycle anew.

* * *

"Snow Chick" premieres on PBS at 8 p.m. EST on February 24. You can also visit pbs.org to watch the full episode after it airs tomorrow.

Correction: Penguins don't have talons, as previously stated in the article.

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Henry Doorly Zoo introduces rockhopper penguin chick

Marjorie Sturgeon

Feb 24, 2016

OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) - There is now a playpen in one of the exhibits at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo, which is for a rockhopper penguin chick.
Zoo officials say playpen for the chick, which hatched on Dec. 12, is to help it become familiar with the other penguins in the exhibit and allow its feathers to fully grow.

Since hatching, it has grown to weigh about 4.6 pounds.  The chick’s gender is still unknown.
There are 81 penguins on display at Omaha’s zoo, including 12 king penguins, 32 gentoo penguins and 28 rockhopper penguins.
The zoo will let visitors name the penguin.  Submission are being accepted through March 2 at the Antarctic Penguin display in the aquarium. A winner will be announced on March 9.

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Instead of dying, missing Antartic penguins may have relocated, scientist says

By i24news

Published: 02/23/2016

Scientists have not been able fully study how penguins emigrate between colonies

Population at Cape Denison was measured at about 160,000 in February 2011 but by December 2013 hit only 10,000

 

150,000 penguins that disappeared after a massive iceberg grounded near their colony in Antarctica may have relocated, and not died off as previously thought, the British daily the Guardian reported Tuesday.

The B09B iceberg, measuring some 100 square kilometers (38.6 square miles), grounded in Commonwealth Bay in East Antarctica in December 2010, the researchers from Australia and New Zealand wrote in the Antarctic Science journal earlier this month.

The Adelie penguin population at the bay's Cape Denison was measured to be about 160,000 in February 2011 but by December 2013 it had plunged to an estimated 10,000, they said.

The iceberg's grounding meant the penguins had to walk more than 60 kilometers (37 miles) to find food, impeding their breeding attempts, said the researchers from the University of New South Wales' (UNSW) Climate Change Research Center and New Zealand's West Coast Penguin Trust.

These observations, in addition to "hundreds of abandoned eggs," led the scientists to conclude that the penguin population was dying and that within 20 years would be gone all together.

Michelle De La Rue, a penguin population researcher at the University of Minnesota in the US, presents a new, more optimistic theory.

De La Rue believes that the penguins could simply have moved on to find a new home, similar to an incident in 2001 when another iceberg cut off the penguins living on Ross Island from the sea, said the Guardian.

“Just because there are a lot fewer birds observed doesn’t automatically mean the ones that were there before have perished,” said De La Rue.

“They easily could have moved elsewhere, which would make sense if nearby colonies are thriving,” she added.

The earlier study, which De La Rue was not involved with, noted that penguins living on the eastern fringe of the bay just eight kilometers from the ice berg blockage were thriving.

What has actually happened to the penguins may remain a mystery ,at least for the time being, as scientists have not been able fully study how penguins emigrate between colonies, said the Guardian.
 “I do not know what happened to these birds, but no one does for certain,” De La Rue said.

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Little Blindy Gets Airborne, and Brings Hope for NZ Penguins

By nick perry, associated press

FLEA BAY, New Zealand — Feb 23, 2016

The Associated Press

This Feb. 8, 2016 photo shows Blindy the little blue penguin in Flea Bay, New Zealand. Blindy was born without functioning eyes and is being looked after by Shireen Helps. Efforts by the Helps family over more than three decades helped save the bay’s penguins from predators while many nearby colonies were wiped out. (AP Photo/Nick Perry)

Blindy the little blue penguin was born without functioning eyes and developed the unusual habit of swimming in tight circles.

So to prevent the bird from continually crashing into the side of the small pond where it swims, Shireen Helps began tossing it out into deeper water. Penguins are flightless but Blindy, for a few moments anyway, gets to be airborne.

Blindy lives in New Zealand's Flea Bay, home to three humans and more than 2,500 penguins. Efforts by the Helps family over more than three decades helped save the bay's penguins from predators while many nearby colonies were wiped out.

These days, the colony is thriving, a hopeful sign at a time when many penguin species from the Galapagos Islands to Antarctica are facing threats from humans that come from overfishing and global warming.

Helps and her husband Francis never intended to become penguin custodians. Francis moved to Flea Bay, also known as Pohatu, in 1969, with the intention of farming sheep and cattle. He said it wasn't until the first night, when he was kept awake by noises like a donkey braying, that he realized he was surrounded by penguins. "They're very noisy at night, especially pre-breeding," said Shireen Helps. "They get really wound up. They party all night." 

After meeting Francis, Shireen moved to the bay in 1974, and said she noticed other penguin colonies in the area were disappearing. "And that's when we started to look critically around our own backyard," she said. "We found dead penguins everywhere. We realized that predators were hitting into them, and if somebody didn't do something to save this colony, it would be lost." 

So they began trapping feral cats, ferrets and stoats. They also built tiny wooden huts for the penguins to monitor them and to stop them fighting each other for nesting sites. Finally, they started nursing the ill birds, managing to save some and return them to the wild.

Found in parts of Australia and New Zealand, the penguins go by several names: little penguins, little blue penguins, and fairy penguins. Adults stand just 33 centimeters (13 inches) tall and weigh 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), making them the world's smallest penguin species.

Those living around the South Island's Banks Peninsula, where Flea Bay is located a little southeast of Christchurch, are a local variant, known as white-flippered, due to the distinctive white stripes along the leading edge of their flippers.

Over the years, the Helps have developed an admiration for the little seabirds, and their observations have brought some amusing insights. "A common thought is that penguins mate for life. Well, some of our monitoring notes make interesting reading if you're into soap operas," she said. "So yeah, they can fool around." 

There was one penguin they called Shark Bait, which they found bleeding after it had been mauled by a shark. They got a veterinarian to administer stitches and fed it plenty of anchovies before returning it to the ocean.

Blindy, who is about 12 weeks old, was from a nearby colony and was found by a local farmer after it had left its nest and gotten lost in a creek.

Helps said Blindy was born with a malformed head and beak, making it hard to tell if it's a male or female. She said at first its circling antics seemed to make the penguin disorientated but now it's swimming more confidently. "If it gets dizzy going around one way, it changes direction and goes around the other way," she said. "So it's really learning very well." 

She said the penguin is too disabled to be returned to the wild, but she hopes that a zoo might take it. Although penguins are seabirds, they can also live in fresh water and often do so in zoos.

Animal ecologist Chris Challies, who has monitored white-flippered little penguins for more than four decades, said the population on Banks Peninsula plunged by as much as 80 percent from 1980 to 2000 as they were attacked by predators like ferrets, which would sometimes wipe out entire colonies between breeding seasons.

He said the trapping program introduced by the Helps family "probably saved the colony through the 1990s."

The penguins were also given a boost after local authorities banned fisher folk from using nets which inadvertently caught the penguins and later declared the area around Flea Bay a marine reserve.

Longer-term, Challies said, factors like global warming could severely affect their habitat. Recent studies indicate that emperor penguins face a big threat from changes to Antarctica's sea ice, which will affect their breeding and ability to catch fish.

The little blue penguins "are doing very well at the moment but we can't count on it," Challies said. "These things can fluctuate. It's the marine environment we can't control."

For now, Flea Bay is providing a sanctuary, and dozens of seals have also found a home there. Shireen Helps runs a small business hosting tour groups which come to see both, while her husband and son Daniel continue to manage the farm.

Helps says to keep one step ahead of the predators, she's been experimenting with a new concoction. 

She's breeding mice and using the slurry from their cages in traps, which she says has been working 

well.

On a recent summer evening, she placed a penguin she had nursed back to health in the breaking waves. But it turned its back on the ocean and marched back toward Helps. So she picked it up and tossed it out a little deeper, and this time, it swam away.

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This lovely family are helping out a blind penguin that keeps swimming in circles

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Penguins may be flightless – but thanks to animal lover Shireen Helps, poor little Blindy has (for a few moments anyway) managed to get airborne.

The little blue penguin was born without functioning eyes and developed the unusual habit of swimming in tight circles.
So to prevent the bird from continually crashing into the side of the small pond where it swims, Shireen began tossing it out into deeper water.

Here’s little Blindy (Nick Perry/AP)

Blindy lives in New Zealand’s Flea Bay, which is home to just three humans and more than 2,500 penguins. Efforts by the Helps family over more than three decades have helped save the bay’s penguins from predators while many nearby colonies were wiped out.
Blindy, who is about 12 weeks old, was from a nearby colony and was found by a local farmer after it had left its nest and got lost in a creek.
Shireen said Blindy was born with a malformed head and beak, making it hard to tell if it is male or female. She said at first its circling antics seemed to make the penguin disorientated but now it is swimming more confidently.

The Helps, living up to their name on Flea Bay (Nick Perry/AP)

“If it gets dizzy going around one way, it changes direction and goes around the other way,” she said. “So it’s really learning very well.”
She said the penguin is too disabled to be returned to the wild, but she hopes that a zoo might take it. Although penguins are sea birds, they can also live in fresh water and often do so in zoos.
These days, the Flea Bay colony is thriving, a hopeful sign at a time when many penguin species from the Galapagos Islands to Antarctica are facing threats from humans due to overfishing and global warming.

The penguin colonies on Flea Bay are now thriving thanks to the Helps (Nick Perry/AP)

Shireen and her husband Francis never intended to become penguin custodians. Francis moved to Flea Bay, also known as Pohatu, in 1969, with the intention of farming sheep and cattle. It was not until the first night, when he was kept awake by noises like a donkey braying, that he realised he was surrounded by penguins.
“They’re very noisy at night, especially pre-breeding,” said Shireen. “They get really wound up. They party all night.”
After meeting Francis, Shireen moved to the bay in 1974, and said she noticed other penguin colonies in the area were disappearing.
“And that’s when we started to look critically around our own back yard,” she said. “We found dead penguins everywhere. We realised that predators were hitting into them and if somebody didn’t do something to save this colony, it would be lost.”

The spectacular home of three humans and 2,500 penguins. The dream. (Nick Perry/AP)

The couple began trapping feral cats, ferrets and stoats and also built tiny wooden huts for the penguins to monitor them and to stop them fighting each other for nesting sites. Finally, they started nursing the sick birds, managing to save some and return them to the wild.
Found in parts of Australia and New Zealand, the penguins go by several names: little penguins, little blue penguins, and fairy penguins. Adults stand just 33cm and weigh 2.2lbs, making them the world’s smallest penguin species.
Those living around the South Island’s Banks Peninsula, where Flea Bay is located a little south east of Christchurch, are a local variant, known as white-flippered, due to the distinctive white stripes along the leading edge of their flippers.

These little guys aren’t as faithful as we might have thought, according to the Helps (Nick Perry/AP)

Over the years, the Helps have developed an admiration for the little seabirds, and their observations have brought some amusing insights.
“A common thought is that penguins mate for life. Well, some of our monitoring notes make interesting reading if you’re into soap operas,” she said. “So yeah, they can fool around.”

source