Wiinterrr's Day

Image of the Day

2012-01-30T13:09:00.001-06:00

Penguin Kiss, a photo by truubloo on Flickr.

Rare Penguins return to Milford Sound

2012-01-30T12:54:00.004-06:00

Rare Penguins return to Milford Sound

Monday, 30 January 2012
Press Release: Southern Discoveries

30 January2012
Rare Penguins return to Milford Sound
TheFiordland Crested Penguin (Tawaki) checks out the MilfordSound Wharf on a gorgeous day in thefiord.
The season’s firstsighting of a rare Fiordland Crested Penguin or ‘Tawaki’moulting took place yesterday afternoon as SouthernDiscoveries Kayak Guide Paul Park noticed a lone penguinnear the Milford Sound Wharf.
The seabird looked to betaking in the view of the vessels at the wharf and marks thestart of penguin moulting season that takes place every yearfrom mid-January to early March.
Penguins are unusual inthat they are one of the few bird species that moult alltheir feathers simultaneously. The moulting takes about twoweeks and is very stressful to the birds - they cannot enterthe sea during the moult because they have no waterproof,insulating coat. This means they do not feed and so lose upto half of their body weight during moulting. This leavesthem highly vulnerable to predators at this time.

DouglasKeith, Southern Discoveries Milford Sound manager says theseabirds also visit in early spring when they come to thefiords for the nesting season, delighting visitors andnature guides aboard Encounter Cruises operated by SouthernDiscoveries.
“The Tawaki are an icon of Fiordland andone of the rarest penguins in the world. They come to moultat this time of year returning to the sea with new coatswhen they’re strong enough, then return to breed later inthe year.
Close up view ofthe Tawaki
“They are a regularsight during the breeding season (July to November) butit’s always exciting for us to spot them and to know howrare and special they are. It’s always a highlight of ourtrips for visitors when we seem them in their naturalenvironment.”
“Southern Discoveries Kayaking andEncounter Cruise offer fantastic experiences where peoplecan get really close to nature. We’re very aware of ournatural environment and work hard to make sure we gentlyview wildlife activity without disturbing it,” says MrKeith.
Southern Discoveries is passionate about preservingMilford Sound’s beauty for future generations and workshard to ensure visitors leave with an understanding andrespect for the wild environment. The company is also a keypartner in a major Sinbad Sanctuary conservation project inMilford Sound for which it recently won an environmentaward.

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-29T09:55:00.001-06:00

Sound Off, a photo by Duane Miller on Flickr.

Endangered Penguins Bond in San Francisco

2012-01-28T20:50:00.001-06:00

Jake Richardson

January 27, 2012

Sinclair the African Penguin moved into a penguin colony at the California Academy of Sciences in December. She was born at the New England Aquarium in 1991, but moved to California from Oklahoma. Bonding between Sinclair and a male African penguin has already taken place, and they may produce offspring. Below is an interview with the Academy about the African penguins.

What prompted Sinclair’s move from the Tulsa Zoo to your facility in San Francisco?

Sinclair’s transfer was recommended by the African Penguin Species Survival Plan (SSP) following its 2011 meeting. Zoos and aquariums around the country participate in the African Penguin SSP in an effort to maintain a healthy and genetically diverse captive population.

How did you choose potential candidates for Sinclair?

Sinclair was recommended by the SSP to pair up with Agulhas, a male already in the Academy’s colony.

How do you know the bond formed between Sinclair and new male is likely to be permanent?

When Sinclair arrived at the Academy in November, she and Agulhas spent a month alone together in a cozy space affectionately known as the “love shack,” where they began to show initial signs of forming a bond, including bowing and shaking their heads to one another. Now on exhibit with the rest of the colony, Agulhas is following Sinclair around routinely, but the pair are not yet fully bonded, and we may decide to give them some more alone time together to encourage the process. If their bond does solidify it is highly likely, given the highly monogamous nature of this species, that it will remain permanent.

Has she shown interest in other penguins?

No.

Do the males help with rearing the chicks?

Males and females have an equal role.

How many other African Penguins are living in the same colony with Sinclair?

We currently have 16 penguins in our colony, including Sinclair. Within the next few months, the Academy will be receiving an additional two females, again per an SSP recommendation, bringing our colony up to 18 penguins.

Is it likely she will spend the rest of her life in your San Francisco facility?

Yes, she should spend the rest of her life here at the Academy.

What kind of enrichment activities are provided for the penguins?

We are constantly changing the enrichment we provide for our colony, but examples include different sorts of materials they can collect for nesting material, toys, blowing bubbles, playing different music, or adding new animals to the exhibit like sea stars, urchins and abalone. However, because they are such social animals, the most meaningful enrichment probably comes from their changing interactions with each other and the people who care for them. We also provide environmental enrichment by, for example, fluctuating the temperature and photoperiod throughout the year to mimic changes they’d be experiencing in the wild.

If your penguin colony grows, might some of them be placed in other facilities?

Yes, it is highly likely that some of the offspring produced here at the Academy will be transferred to other facilities under the auspices of the SSP in the future.

Are African Penguins endangered?

Yes, in 2010 they were listed as Endangered by both US Fish & Wildlife as well as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

What is happening to those currently living in the wild, in terms of their population stability?

As reflected by their Endangered listing, their status in the wild is very unstable. Their numbers in the wild have declined by more than 90 percent from what they were at the turn of the last century and this decline has been particularly accelerated within the past few decades. There is a real possibility they will go extinct in the wild within our lifetime.

Image Credit: California Academy of Sciences

story source

What's Gnu at the St. Louis Zoo?

2012-01-28T20:48:00.000-06:00

At 2 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 26, when the temperature is below 50 degrees, the penguins will be on parade.CreditJosh Monken.

Penguins don't mind the snow. CreditSaint Louis Zoo.

Even when temperatures are chilly, penguins can be found taking a dip. CreditSaint Louis Zoo

Parade of the Penguins

Through Feb. 26, the zoo’s penguins hold their own parade at 2 p.m. every Sunday when the air temperature is below 50˚F. On those days, the penguins are allowed to waddle in front of the outdoor bear enclosures, taking a path that leads back to their home at Penguin and Puffin Coast.

“So it’s really a way to bring folks out when it’s cold,” Westmoreland said.

This is the fifth year the penguins have been allowed to stroll the grounds.

“A lot of zoos do this, but it’s also one of the ways we show how much we care for animals, in that it gives them an opportunity to do something different and explore a new environment,” Westmoreland said. “It’s good for the penguins, it’s good for our visitors, and you never know what you’ll experience as this happens. So it’s a surprise each time.”

source

This Week's Pencognito!

2012-01-28T20:41:00.001-06:00

Please join Jen and all the Pengies by clicking HERE

Image of the Day

2012-01-28T10:25:00.001-06:00

Penguin Feet, a photo by Flotsammy on Flickr.

Late winter leads to early arrival of five penguin chicks to Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse

2012-01-27T10:13:00.000-06:00

Published: Thursday, January 26, 2012

By John Mariani / The Post-Standard

Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney introduced two of the five Humboldt Penguins recently born at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo and announced a contest to name one of them.

Video by John Berry / The Post-Standard

Syracuse, NY -- The late arrival of winter to Syracuse apparently led to the early arrivals of five baby Humboldt penguins to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo.

The first of the five infants hatched Jan. 9, with brothers or sisters -- officials are not sure of their genders yet -- following on Jan. 13, 14, 15 and 17.

Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney helped zoo officials introduce the eldest and youngest chicks at a news conference at 10 a.m. at the zoo.

Mahoney, granted the privilege of naming the youngest, dubbed it "Cocotea" after a penguin colony in Peru. The bird is to be called Coco for short.

"Oh, my goodness," Mahoney cooed as she held the fuzzy gray baby against her blouse. She wore pink, Mahoney said, in hope the chick would prove to be a girl.

The hatchlings' gender can only be told through DNA testing. Zoo officials sent blood samples from the birds' eggs to a lab and expect to learn the result by the end of the week, zoo Director Ted Fox said.

The public will get a chance to name the eldest chick. Suggestions can be e-mailed to contest@rosamondgiffordzoo.org. The top five suggestions will be put up for a vote on the zoo's website, www.rosamondgiffordzoo@org, between Feb 9 and Feb. 16. The winner will be announced Feb. 17.

John Berry / The Post-StandardCocotea the penguin, also known as "Coco."

Zoo staff will name the other three, spokeswoman Lorrell Walter said.

The extended warmth in the Syracuse area the past few months allowed the zoo's colony to hang out longer at the beach at the penguin exhibit, Fox said. That resulted in earlier-than-usual courtships. The result was hatchings in January, not the usual late March, he said.

The birds' growth has been explosive. Hatching from an egg the size of a large lime, the youngest bird has grown in nine days from a little more than 3 ounces to about 13.5 ounces. In two and a half weeks, the oldest chick has grown from the same birth weight to about 2 pounds, 6 ounces. Both are being fed fish regurgitated by their parents.

Their early arrival means they should be weaned and ready to join the colony this spring, officials said.

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-27T07:40:00.001-06:00

Rockhopper washing, a photo by Derek Pettersson on Flickr.

Coronado's Very Own Penguin Trainer

2012-01-26T15:34:00.001-06:00

Meet Liz Thaete - Coronado's Very Own Penguin Trainer at SeaWorld

Even though Coronado is famous for sunny weather, usually in the 70’s, Liz Thaete wakes up on work days and has to wear a pair of long underwear and a couple of pairs of socks to her 6:30am shift in the 40 degree penguin enclosure at Sea World.

Liz Thaete’s family was brought to Coronado by way of the Navy. She and her sisters were born here and have been through all the schools, sports and youth groups the island has to offer. She graduated CHS in 2005. I was very excited to learn that we both had the same history teacher, Mr. Heaphy, while at Coronado High School.

Since Liz was little, she always had a keen interest for animals that her friends and family observed. She has always known she wanted to work with animals no matter what. While growing up she volunteered at local animal shelters to try and get as much hands-on experience with animals as possible before applying for a job that had to deal with any sort of creatures.

She attended Westmont College in Santa Barbara and graduated in 2009. During her summers away from college, Liz worked in the educational department at SeaWorld. Finally, when she was able to apply for a full-time job to work with any species of animals, she got the news she was going to be working with the penguins!

“It is not a glamorous job, but I love it” was Liz’s first reply when I asked her about what it is like to be a penguin trainer at SeaWorld. “Having penguin poop, scales, and the odor of fish on you all day,” she said, “is not pretty,” but she has grown to love the penguins who cuddle up to her legs when she is in the enclosure.

The young and high-energy penguin caretaker has a favorite flightless bird named Bart. He is an Emperor penguin, a species that can only be found in Antarctica, Japan, and San Diego’s SeaWorld. Bart uses loud and cacophonous sounds to communicate with Liz whenever she is working inside their freezing habitat to show that he cares for her.

At times Liz misses her “babies” if she is away from them for long periods of time. One may question, “Is it is dangerous to work with penguins?” The answer is yes. Liz says that there are always bruises on her legs from when the penguins get a little out of control and bite her, maybe even on her face at times. However, she says that she really enjoys being up close and personal with these personality-filled penguins.

Every work day is an adventure for her because there is no concrete routing the trainers follow, she tends to the present needs of the penguins and the penguin enclosure. One responsibility she has consists of jumping in the bone-chilling water of the enclosure to clean the glass through which all of us regulars see the penguins. Another task she has is coating the habitat with a fresh layer of snow because the penguins tend to soil the white ice rather quickly with their lightening fast metabolism.
Although it is chick season at the penguin unit currently, and the penguins seem cute and cuddly, Liz warns us that they would not make good pets because they need constant care, attention and don’t necessarily have learning capabilities because they are birds and not mammals.

And for anyone who is interested in following in Liz’s footsteps studying biology, psychology and getting hands-on experience is her advice to becoming a penguin trainer.

Today, whenever Liz runs into people she knows in Coronado and tells them she is working with penguins at SeaWorld, they are happy to hear that in the end, she has a career doing something she has always been extremely passionate about.

During our interview, I asked Liz what her take was on all the new restaurants and businesses popping up and closing down on Orange Avenue and she answered, “It’s weirding me out!” Liz explained to me that every time she has left the island and come back, it seems like a different town! A perk in her opinion, about our ever-changing main street, is the new Village Theatre which she goes to when she is not catching up on sleep or rock climbing on her days off.

From left to right: Liz with several of the Emperors inside the polar unit, Liz working with several of the chicks from this breeding season, Liz in her galoshes in the enclosure.
---------------------------------------
Bianca Valle
Online Editorial Intern
eCoronado.com

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-26T12:12:00.003-06:00

Source: Twitpic

The Frozen Planet...Moves Like Jagger

2012-01-25T18:04:00.001-06:00

The Penguin that Knew Exactly Where He Was

2012-01-25T18:03:00.001-06:00

Paula, an African blackfooted penguin from the Newport Aquarium, visited the state Capitol in Frankfort on Tuesday, Jan. 24. JOHN FLAVELL | ASSOCIATED PRESS

A penguin pooped Tuesday on the Senate floor near the desk of Senate President David Williams.
The penguin, from Newport Aquarium, was in the chamber as Senate President Pro Tem Katie Stine, R-Southgate, presented Senate Resolution 92, a measure to honor the aquarium for its contributions to the "aquatic world in general through its stewardship of sea life and penguins."

Williams, presiding over the chamber, interrupted Stine to inform her that the penguin "just defecated on the floor." An aquarium employee placed the penguin on the upper part of Williams' desk after it did its official business and while Stine finished with her resolution.

source

Taking care of rambling penguins

2012-01-25T18:01:00.001-06:00

By David Bruce on Wed, 25 Jan 2012

The Regions: North Otago | Your Town: Oamaru

Protecting Oamaru Harbour's blue penguins are volunteers (from left) Judy Stevenson, Shirley Keen, Julie Everson and Bruce Boxall. Photo by David Bruce.

Blue penguins at Oamaru Harbour have four new advocates - volunteers looking after their welfare and ensuring visitors do not disrupt the birds' nesting patterns. The volunteer scheme was set up last year by the Waitaki Tourism Association and those who turned out, up to four nights a week depending on demand, were doing a great job, association executive member Carol Scott said yesterday.
However, more volunteers were still needed.
The decision to set up the volunteer group followed comments about the increasing numbers of visitors to the harbour and the effect they were having on blue penguins.
The penguins nest all around the harbour and people and traffic posed a danger when the birds returned from sea to their nests at dusk. Visitors, not understanding how things such as flash photography could disrupt the penguins, were also causing problems.
The advocates, wearing reflective vests, patrolled the harbour area, stopping traffic to let penguins cross and informing visitors on foot how to behave.
Most visitors appreciated the information and followed instructions not to photograph or disrupt the penguins' paths.
The advocates also encouraged people to visit the penguin colony to see and learn more about the birds, she said.
The Department of Conservation trained the advocates and visited regularly to follow what they were doing when they were on duty. The advocates had become very protective of the penguins and active in ensuring their welfare, she said.

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-25T15:49:00.001-06:00

The Curious Penguin, a photo by zekeafroid on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2012-01-24T09:08:00.001-06:00

ペンギン, a photo by taroimo / タロイモ on Flickr.

"I can fly!"

Can't talk now--I'm off to work the creche

2012-01-23T23:21:00.000-06:00

Dubai facility gets ready to host snow penguins

2012-01-23T22:47:00.003-06:00

Artificial 25-storey freezing ski hills will have a colony of Antarctic birds year-round in a specially-created area

By Derek Baldwin, Chief Reporter
January 24, 2012

Image Credit: Photo courtesy: Ski Dubai
A colony of snow penguins get acquainted with the environment at Ski Dubai. The seafaring birds are part of what Ski Dubai said is a “multi-generation breeding programme at Sea World” and were born and bred in captivity.

Dubai: Snow penguins now living permanently at Ski Dubai's 25-storey snow-covered wonderland don't usually give interviews to the media.

But at month's end, Dubai's newest stars will meet the press in a media briefing before the mountain-themed ski hill opens its newest attraction, Snow Penguins at Ski Dubai, to the world sometime in February.

To be housed year-round in the 22,500 square-metre facility chilled to a constant -1 degree C to -2C and covered with snow, the colony of penguins "will live in a specially created environment which mirrors the Antarctica", Ski Dubai said in a statement.

Exciting attraction

The seafaring birds are part of what Ski Dubai said is a "multi-generation breeding programme at Sea World" and were born and bred in captivity.

Organisers billed the environmental awareness project as "the world's first exciting attraction of its kind" and pledged that patrons young and old will be offered a rare chance to see penguins in their new environment. "Visitors will soon have a rare opportunity to interact with these remarkable birds in a one-of-a-kind intimate encounter and learn about their unique traits and habits. Mall of the Emirates visitors will also be able to enjoy viewing the snow penguin's natural antics during the grand presentation of the ‘March of the Penguins', starting in February 2012," the ski resort said.

source

African Penguin Exhibit At Baltimore Zoo Draws Crowds

2012-01-23T22:46:00.000-06:00

January 22, 2012

STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP/Getty Images

By BRANDON OLAND
Carroll County Times

BALTIMORE (AP) — The 52 African penguins at The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore will chew on shoe laces, hide underneath rocks and skirmish among themselves.
They are a curious, stubborn, squawking lot. The keepers at their Rock Island habitat, the zoo’s penguin exhibit since 1967, have their hands full. Always.
“This is kind of like having a day care with a bunch of 3-year-old kids sometimes,” said Jen Kottyan, the high-energy manager charged with their care.

Yet it’s those same quirks that have allowed the waddling, attention-craving penguins to endear themselves to their human keepers. Their antics during public feedings draw a crowd no matter the time of year, including in the winter months when the Maryland Zoo was previously closed to visitors.
The zoo is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Fridays through Mondays in January and February for the second consecutive year.

A few of the species, including some African birds and tortoises, are kept indoors during teeth-chattering, cold winter days. But most of the zoo’s more than 2,500 animals deal with frigid weather just fine.
The African penguins seem right at home. The species is native to the rocky coastline of South Africa and Namibia and its temperate climate. Only a few penguin species live as far south as Antarctica in the wild.
The zoo’s penguins are free to meander about outside as long as their 250,000-gallon moat is not completely frozen over. If it gets too chilly even for them, they can retreat to a heated indoor sanctuary.

When the domesticated penguins spot caretakers and visitors inside their habitat, many of them wander over. And that’s when the fun starts.
Depending on their moods, the penguins will peck at pant legs, surround their human counterparts or jostle with each other. If one of their human handlers omits a yell that sounds like a braying donkey, the penguins will mimic it.

The high-pitched squawk is the reason why the African penguins are nicknamed the jackass breed.
“We don’t like to call them that,” Kottyan said, “but the kids get a kick out of it.”
During a public feeding Friday, the penguins gathered while caretakers flung herring, capelin and squid at the group. The penguins each eat about a pound of fish each day. Their human overseers closely track how much each penguin in the group eats.

Two of the zoo’s four penguin chicks were brought outside for the public feeding. Four penguin chicks have been successfully bred there in recent months, Kottyan said, with the most recent one born on Christmas Day.
The Maryland Zoo has raised more than 800 chicks and plays a role in the African Penguin Species Survival Plan. The zoo has raised chicks that are now on display throughout the country at other exhibits.
The Maryland Zoo has the largest collection of African penguins in the U.S.

The African penguins are threatened due to overfishing and frequent oil slicks in their home habitats, which happen to be near busy shipping routes for crude.
“If they get coated with oil, they want to clean themselves and wind up ingesting it,” Kottyan said.
The plight of the penguin was featured in major motion pictures “March of the Penguins” and “Happy Feet” in the last decade.
Kottyan said zoo visitors took notice.

“We hear the comments even still when we are out in the public feeding that our penguins don’t look like the ones from ‘March of the Penguins,”‘ she said.
That’s because they are a completely different breed. “March of the Penguins” followed a colony of Emperor penguins in Antarctica. The 2-feet-tall African penguins are roughly half the size of their
Emperor counterparts.

Regardless, Kottyan said the movies sparked an interest in their plight. African penguins are considered endangered by The International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The penguin exhibit is among the most popular at the zoo, staffers said. A few times each year, the zoo holds Breakfast with the Penguins programs. This year’s programs are scheduled for 8:30 a.m. April 14, July 6-7 and Sept. 8.
“They sell out every single time,” Kottyan said.

During the events, visitors have the opportunity to eat breakfast, feed the penguins and learn more about their behavior. They discover what their caretakers have known for so long: The tiny penguins can be rambunctious, loving, inquisitive and maddening all at once.
“Working with these guys,” keeper Betty Dipple said, “prepares you for motherhood.”

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-23T09:03:00.001-06:00

Galapagos Penguin, a photo by nicnac1000 on Flickr.

Happy pengie

Image of the Day

2012-01-22T10:34:00.001-06:00

Penguin Beak, a photo by vladsinayuk on Flickr.

Climate Change-Penguins Confirm Concept from the Ends of the Earth

2012-01-22T08:30:00.001-06:00

By Bill Henry

Posted 1 day ago

Penguins as far as the horizon, icebergs calving, humpbacked and orca whales, an active volcano.

These are highlights of a 10-day Antarctic expedition over the Christmas break, in which Owen Sound student Laurissa Christie was among 60 Students on Ice.

The excursion — her second trip to a polar region — confirmed what Christie saw in the Canadian Arctic 18 months ago and reaffirmed plans to pursue science at university in environmental studies, with a focus on the polar regions.
Signs of climate change are more obvious in the Canadian north, where Christie saw vast areas of land that were covered in glaciers until recent years.

That impact is harder to assess in Antarctica, which remains a pristine, untouched landscape, inhabited by a small number of researchers studying the outer edges of a “huge continent full of ice.”
“We saw basically everything that Antarctica has to offer and we really — as cliche as it sounds — the scary part for me is that we only saw the tip of the iceberg,” Christie said this week. “I think what I realized about that environment is how precious it is and how we really do need to protect it.”

Seeing the polar regions convinced her how great and far reaching are the consequences of individual actions and how behaviour has to change.
“I think I learned that every action really does make a difference,” she said. “That message for me is to care and learn as much about the environment as possible and by doing that spread awareness.”
That’s a message she’s taking to school classrooms, community groups and the regional science fair. It was her gold medal science fair project in 2009 that earned her the trip to the Arctic with Students on Ice and planted the desire to follow up with a trip to the Antarctic.

Christie brought back new, firm friendships with students from across Canada, the U.S., and several other countries, along with about 5,000 photographs. Her favourite shows a single Adelie penguin floating on ice in a clear blue water with a frozen ice wall as a backdrop.
Visitors are supposed to stay five metres from the penguins, but as the students crouched among one of Antarctica’s largest colonies at the Danger Islands, the curious creatures wandered within reach.

“We just all spread out and were really quiet,” she said. “I was just pretty much in awe.”

Later, some students hiked to the top of Paulette Island, an active volcano. From there, the penguins were massed as far as the eye could see.
“There were just millions upon millions of them.”
The expedition staff of 30 included glaciologists, biologists and other researchers, as well as physicians, a musician, a visual artist, journalists, a film crew and other. Students helped with some of the research, including bird counts, studying penguin behaviour, measuring and collecting snow and ice data and collecting ocean plankton samples which will help understand the impact of climate change.

Scientists also want to learn how warmer water is affecting populations of krill — a small, shrimp-like crustacean that lives in very cold water and is eaten by whales.
While it was summer in Antarctica, the “chilly” weather ranged between about -10 C and 3 C.
Christie said she is still processing what she learned about herself and the planet, which boils down to a new, greater appreciation of her own environment and a renewed urge to “get outside.”

“We live in one of the coolest places in the world. We have the Bruce Peninsula. We have so much life and so much all around us that we really do need to learn about what is in our backyard before we can help the world,” she said. “With climate change, we never know what can happen, so let’s just appreciate it.”

source

Turtle Back Zoo's Penguins Featured on CBS

2012-01-21T15:02:00.000-06:00

Penguins paint during Penguin Awareness Day for CBS New York

ByKaren Yi
January 20, 2012

Two of Turtle Back Zoo's own penguins were waddling through the CBS New York studio today in a special segment celebrating Penguin Awareness Day.

The two penguins, though, are apparently painters, too.

Under the direction of Dr. Jeremy Goodman, director at Turtle Back Zoo, the African black-footed penguins dipped their feet in paint and trudged across white paper, leaving behind colorful footprint art.

Goodman told CBS's John Elliot that the painting is part of the enrichment program at the zoo. "They like the feel of the paint and some of the colors of the paint," he said. The penguin's paintings are then auctioned off to raise money for the conservation fund.

Penguins were recently classified as endangered species.

Goodman also demystified some misconceptions about the animals and said that penguins are not actually all from the cold weather. African penguins, also known as jackass penguins because they bray like donkeys, are from the coast of Africa. Many penguins also come form warm weather climates, Goodman told Elliot.
To watch the CBS segment, click here.

source

Sydney Aquarium welcomes baby penguins

2012-01-21T14:53:00.000-06:00

Three baby penguins were released into the aquarium and reunited with their parents for the first time since birth at Sydney Aquarium.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

Sydney Aquarium staff Martin Garwood and Libby Eyre release baby penguins on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

Sydney Aquarium staff Martin Garwood and Libby Eyre release baby penguins on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

Sydney Aquarium staff Martin Garwood and Libby Eyre prepare to release baby penguins on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

Sydney Aquarium staff Martin Garwood and Libby Eyre release baby penguins on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

Sydney Aquarium staff Martin Garwood and Libby Eyre release baby penguins on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

Penguins at Sydney Aquarium gather to welcome baby penguins being released by staff on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

A baby penguin swims in a tank after being released at Sydney Aquarium on January 18, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

Getty Images

source

Harry Potter p-p-p-picks up a penguin!

2012-01-21T14:38:00.000-06:00

Daniel Radcliffe makes friends with Antarctic guest on the Jonathan Ross Show

By Holly Thomas

21st January 2012

He fought dragons, battled irate mermaids and warded off dementors (figuratively at least) during his tenure as Harry Potter.

And it seems Daniel Radcliffe's versatility when it comes to dealing with unfamiliar creatures hasn't waned since.

The actor looked delighted when presented with a live penguin to feed by Sir David Attenborough on the Jonathan Ross Show this evening.

Made a new friend: Daniel Radcliffe fed a snack to a penguin under the indulgent eye of Sir David Attenborough on the Jonathan Ross Show this evening

Sir David looked on indulgently as the actor presented the bird with a tempting snack.
Not everyone Daniel meets is so comfortable interacting with the star however, and he described one unfortunate incident to Jonathan.

He said: 'They love Potter in Japan. I had my truest Beatle-mania type experience once when I was over there when I was walking through a school corridor.'

'I was visiting a Japanese school for a publicity thing. I brushed a young girl as I was walking past her and I said, "Oh, I’m so sorry." And she fainted.'

Took it in his stride: Having dealt with animals a great deal on screen as Harry Potter, and on stage during his Equus tenure, Daniel was more than comfortable

Daniel at least took the occurrence in his stride it appears, as he continued: 'I had brushed her and spoken to her and it was too much and she fainted.'

Magic touch: Daniel told Jonathan how a Japanese schoolgirl fainted when he brushed past her

'And you know, you’ve got to enjoy that stuff because that doesn’t last forever. When you have a moment like that you kind of have to take in how cool it is.'

Sir David Attenborough's chat saw the show take a more serious turn, as he spoke to Jonathan about home, and voiced his fears about global warming.

He said: 'Where I really like to be, most, is home. Because the North Pole’s great, but home is what I miss. I miss good cooking.'

'We can see very clearly that the climate is changing. In going back to South Georgia, I’ve seen glaciers retreat. Now one retreating glacier doesn’t prove that it’s changing, you have to take a proper view, and the proper view is that it’s changing.'

'Now there can be an argument as to how far human beings are responsible for that change, but in the end,that’s not the point.'

'If, in fact, the sea is going to rise because of melting ice, and rise by as much as a metre or something, that is a very serious problem for lots of cities around the world which are all built close to the sea…this is the time to deal with it, not to wait until it’s happened.'

On a lighter note, comedian Noel Fielding revealed that he used to want to be a zoo keeper and he once saw monkeys released all over Camden when openinga zoo.
He explained: 'When I was a kid I wanted to be a zoo keeper. And me and Julian from the Boosh actually opened the spider monkey enclosure at London Zoo…they officially asked us to, and there was a plaque there andeverything.'

'And what happened was they put the trees too close to the fence and they all got out and they were just wandering around Camden.'

source

This Week's Pencognito!

2012-01-21T06:32:00.001-06:00

Please join Jen and all the pengies by clicking here!

Image of the Day

2012-01-21T05:33:00.001-06:00

DSC_7359, a photo by Jeroen Bartos on Flickr.

Southern Rockhopper

From Penguin Science: Promote the Penguin Population!

2012-01-20T22:22:00.003-06:00

Penguin Science | Losing the Last Pristine Marine Ecosystem on Earth

“Fortune favors the bold,” is how the saying goes and these days, having depleted fish elsewhere on Earth, the fishing industry has become so bold as to now be fishing the ice-covered waters of the Ross Sea. The risk is high for vessel catastrophe, but so is the fortune. They and their investors are making huge profits in those heretofore unfished waters, beginning with the take of Antarctic toothfish (marketed as Chilean sea bass) in large quantities. Owing to the cost, only the rich can afford to eat these fish. These fish are 50 years old and are very slow to grow and replace themselves; those taken now won’t be replaced even within two lifetimes of a typical commercial fisherman or fishing vessel.

Antarctic toothfish are likely the most important upper-food-web predator in the Ross Sea, and a huge body of research recently coming to fore shows that removing such fish from marine ecosystems elsewhere has had grave repercussions for the system. Following depletion of top predators from marine ecosystems, negative results include invasions of jellyfish, appearance and increased prevalence of toxic plankton blooms with accompanying fish-bird-mammal die-offs, and dramatically increased sensitivity to climate change.

Heretofore — though time is rapidly running out — the Ross Sea remains the last open-ocean marine ecosystem on Earth free of alien species, of large-scale pollution and minerals development, and of toxic plankton blooms and anoxic (oxygen depleted) events. It is the only continental shelf ecosystem remaining on Earth that has its full complement of whales, seals, seabirds, large fish and shell-fish. Unlike elsewhere, it still operates as it did when humans were just beginning to appear on Earth. It therefore has huge heritage value and incomparable value as a resource through which to understand, through art and science, how all continental shelf marine ecosystems once functioned.

If you want to better understand what will be lost as exploitation proceeds in the Ross Sea, read Daniel Pauly and Jay Macleans’s now classic book In a Perfect Ocean: The State ofFisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean (Washington DC: Island Press). They describe what the North Atlantic once was like, hundreds of years ago, and therefore how the Ross Sea is now: whales so numerous they impeded vessel traffic, fish the size of a man as numerous as snow flakes, and shellfish so numerous that in a matter of days they filtered entirely the waters of places like Chesapeake Bay. Although just 15% of the Antarctic circumference, the Ross Sea contains approximately:

1,880,000 breeding Adélie Penguins, 38% of the World population;
104,000 breeding Emperor Penguins, 26% of the World population;
6,000,000 Antarctic Petrels, >30% of the World population;
71,000 Antarctic Minke Whales, ~21% of World population;
3,500 killer whales, an unknown proportion of the World population;
32,000 Weddell Seals, 45% of the Southern Ocean Pacific sector population;
205,000 Crabeater seals, 12% of the Southern Ocean Pacific sector population;
6,000 Leopard seals, 11% of the Southern Ocean Pacific sector population.
It should be a World Heritage Site.

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-20T10:47:00.001-06:00

DSC_7145, a photo by Jeroen Bartos on Flickr.

The King Family Go for a Stroll in Cincinnati

2012-01-19T21:24:00.000-06:00

Baby Blue Penguins at Sydney Aquarium

2012-01-19T21:05:00.002-06:00

Submitted by Ajay Saxena on Thu, 01/19/2012

It has been reported that after staying away from their parents, three baby blue penguins have finally reunited with the parents in Sydney Aquarium.
It has been informed by the Aquarist Martin Garwood that three baby blue penguins were separated from their parents. They were separated by the aquarium authorities with the pursuits of teaching them as to how to survive in tough world.

The three penguins thus returned to the aquarium include two male penguins and one female penguin. While emphasizing on the need of training the penguins, Mr. Garwood said, "Out in the wild, the natural behaviour of the parents is that, at a certain point, they stop caring for their children. So the chicks instinctively go and feed themselves. We take the chicks away. and get them used to eating in captivity by hand feeding them."

The three baby blue penguins are yet to get names. It has been informed that the three penguins were taken good care while they were in the captivity. Their weight was weighed during the introduction of the programme.
In the coming months, the health of the penguins would be monitored closely. The authorities of the aquarium are overwhelmed with joy on reuniting the penguin family. Soon after meeting their parent, the three baby blue penguins jumped with off the water with joy.

In the Sydney aquarium, there are about 17 penguins. There health is monitored on a monthly basis. With the pursuit of making people contribute in their happiness, the authorities of the aquarium have launched a competition in which participants will suggest best suitable names for the penguins. The best names will then be given to the three baby blue penguins.

source

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://video.heraldsun.com.au/2188003960/Baby-penguins-reunited"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;VIDEO: Baby penguins reunited&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Visiting penguin creates real buzz

2012-01-19T21:00:00.003-06:00

Christine McKay | Friday, January 20, 2012

Dannevirke holidaymakers Alexandra and Morgan Kernaghan were among those captivated by a penguin on Te Awanga Beach near Hastings last Friday.

Christine McKay

The Kernaghan family have been holidaying at Te Awanga for 14 years. Even last year's devastating floods have not put them off summer in their caravan.

Now a special encounter on the beach has made their favourite holiday spot even more special, Russell Kernaghan says.

"My youngest daughter and I were walking along the beach when along waddled a penguin," he said.

"We saw two come out of the water, but one was a reluctant visitor and headed back out to sea again.

"However, the penguin which stayed wasn't bothered by people at all.

"He seemed quite happy. In fact it was the people on the beach who were in the biggest flap. Everyone was so excited to see the penguin."

Mr Kernaghan went back to the Te Awanga motor camp to let his other daughter, Morgan, know what was happening.

"The camp nearly emptied out as people went to take a look for themselves," he said.

"I've never seen anything like it in 14 years of holidaying here," he said.

Mr Kernaghan's wife, Glenda, said the penguin appeared on the same day holidaymakers had seen orcas swimming in the bay.

"We've seen little blue penguins in the bay before too, but never any penguins on the beach. It was amazing."

Mr Kernaghan contacted the Department of Conservation in Hawke's Bay and was told the penguin would be fine as long as it was left alone.

"It was really happy and beachgoers were able to get up close.

"It only waddled off when it saw a dog coming along the beach and it happily took itself back out to sea," he said.

source

St. Louis Zoo welcomes baby king penguin

2012-01-19T20:59:00.001-06:00

A baby chick king penguin is bathed before for its daily weighing at the Penguin & Puffin Coast at the Saint Louis Zoo in St. Louis on January 18, 2012. The chick is being reared by its parents ÒFrancineÓ and ÒKaiju". A king penguin chick hatches after about 55 days, then its parents continue to keep it warm under their belly flap for 30-40 days until it grows too large to cover. They continue to share feeding duties for about eight months. It is not yet known if the chick is a male or female. This bird is one of the largest penguin species. As an adult, it weighs about 33 pounds, second only to the emperor penguin. UPI/Bill Grenblatt

A baby chick king penguin is prepared for its daily weighing at the Penguin & Puffin Coast at the Saint Louis Zoo in St. Louis on January 18, 2012.

A baby chick king penguin sits on a scale for its daily weighing at the Penguin & Puffin Coast at the Saint Louis Zoo in St. Louis on January 18, 2012.

ST. LOUIS, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- The St. Louis Zoo announced the birth of a 7-ounce king penguin at its Penguin & Puffin Coast exhibit.
The zoo said on its Web site the chick, born Jan. 8, is being reared by parents Francine and Kaiju at the exhibit, but the youngster may not be visible to visitors for a few weeks because king penguin chicks are kept warm under their parents' belly flaps for the first 30-40 days of their lives.
Zoo officials said they do not yet know if the chick is a male or a female.
The zoo also recently welcomed the births of 67 assassin bug babies as well as numerous stick bugs and katydids at its insect exhibit New Year's Day, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday.

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-19T11:21:00.001-06:00

Penguin Calling Mate, a photo by vladsinayuk on Flickr.

It's a boy - penguin, that is

2012-01-18T15:23:00.002-06:00

A brand new Humboldt penguin has been born at Roger Williams Park Zoo, named Providence. (Photo courtesy of Roger Williams Park Zoo)

Humboldt penguin born at Roger Williams Zoo

Updated: Wednesday, 18 Jan 2012

By Bill Tomison

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - The cold temperatures will suit the newest resident of Roger Williams Park Zoo. A new Humboldt penguin has been born at the penguin exhibit.

The announcement was made on Facebook Monday, with a photo posted, announcing the male chick's name as Providence.

The chick still has the appearance of dull-colored downy fur, prior to becoming the mature black-and-white penguins most of us are familiar with.

Zookeepers are limiting Providence's exposure at this point until he goes on exhibit later in the spring.

source

C'mon People--the Seals are Winning! :-(

2012-01-18T15:21:00.000-06:00

Precious penguins or silly seals? Vote on which is cuter

Keren Su/Lonely Planet Images/Caters News

Two emperor penguins at snow hill Island in Antartica.

Keren Su/Lonely Planet Images/Cater News

A harp seal rolls over and looks at the camera at Iles de la Madeleine in East Canada.

Keren Su/Lonely Planet Images/Caters News

A young emperor penguin poses for the camera at Snow Hill Island in Antarctica.

Keren Su/Lonely Planet Images/Cater News

A harp seal smiles for the camera at Iles de la Madeleine in East Canada.

Mish Whalen writes

From the cutest penguins to the silliest of seals, these adorable animals posed for photographer Su Keren in Antarctica and Canada, making for some enchanting photos – reminiscent of a Disney film.
The photos, taken in 2008 but only recently released by Caters News, show an adorable harp seal rolling over and smiling directly at the camera and a colony of emperor penguins posing for a series of family photos.
According to Caters, the 60-year-old photographer has traveled the globe trying to find the perfect picture. Personally, I think he succeeded! What do you think, and which chilly critter do you think is cuter?

click HERE to vote!

Image of the Day

2012-01-18T14:06:00.003-06:00

source

(Click on image for wallpaper size!)

Happy Feet tracking firm sold to Canada

2012-01-17T19:26:00.002-06:00

By Patrick O'Sullivan

Tuesday Jan 17, 2012

Emperor penguin Happy Feet about to be released from the NIWA ship Tangaroa. The Hawke's Bay company that made the tracking device used to keep tabs on the penguin has just been sold to a Canadian company. Photo / NIWA

Hawke's Bay wildlife-tracking company Sirtrack has been sold to a Canadian company, making it part of the biggest wildlife telemetry company in the world.
Sirtrack achieved worldwide publicity recently after it placed a transmitter on Happy Feet, an Antarctic penguin found sick on the Kapiti Coast. Happy Feet's progress was able to be tracked on Sirtrack's website after it was released into the Southern Ocean.

Lotek Wireless bought Sirtrack from Crown Research Institute Landcare Research.
Sirtrack, founded in 1986, has seen its products deployed on more than 550 species in more than 70 countries. It offers a range of tracking solutions including VHF transmitters, GPS and satellite collars, proximity collars, marine GPS, and satellite transmitters. Its 35 staff are based in Goddard Lane in Havelock North.

Lotek Wireless has already designed and manufactured bird, fish and wildlife monitoring systems. The Ontario-based company also has offices in Newfoundland, the United Kingdom (Biotrack Limited), and Seattle (BioSonics Telemetry Inc).
Both Sirtrack and Lotek also assist clients with system selection, equipment training and data analysis.
Jim Lotimer, president and CEO of Lotek Wireless, said the purchase offered Lotek a broader array of products and services to assist in animal monitoring around the world. "This alliance allows us to expand our markets and continue with our passion for the environment," he said.

Lotek acquired Sirtrack to expand their market reach, specifically in Australia, New Zealand and Africa. Sirtrack was the first telemetry company to appoint a distributor based in Africa.
Landcare Research chairwoman Jo Brosnahan said Landcare had been looking to sell Sirtrack for "some years".
"We wanted the best future for Sirtrack and were looking at what value Landcare could continue to add," she said.

"It was better for the company to be involved with a company that was already active internationally. We really didn't believe we were the appropriate owners anymore."
It is is not unusual for Crown-owned entities to sell subsidiary companies. In 2005 government-owned Meridian Energy sold Victorian hydro and wind power business Southern Hydro to Australian Gas Light for A$1.425 billion. Brosnahan declined to release the sale price of Sirtrack to Hawke's Bay Today.

source

Penguin Videos... Fun stuff!

2012-01-17T18:25:00.002-06:00

Image of the Day

2012-01-17T15:31:00.001-06:00

Pohatu penguin in nest, a photo by josefrancisco.salgado on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2012-01-16T12:10:00.001-06:00

macaroni penguin, a photo by Clifton Santiago on Flickr.

Cute and cuddly: Penguin poses for snap with toy

2012-01-15T22:18:00.004-06:00

by: By staff writers
From: news.com.au
January 16, 2012

Adelie Penguins walk past the bow of the Aurora Australis which is wedged in fast ice in Commonwealth Bay 20 klms from Mawson's Hut in Antarctica Picture: Dean Lewins / AAP

An Adelie Penguin grooms a soft penguin toy as researchers and crew of the Aurora Australis get out onto the fast ice which the ship has settled into at Commonwealth Bay 20 klms from Mawson's Hut in Antarctica. Picture: Dean Lewins / AAP

Adventurers hand penguin stuffed toy
Penguin snuggles and grooms it
Aurora Australia heading for Mawson's hut

THE crew on the Aurora Australis icebreaker has taken heart-warming snaps of a penguin grooming a stuffed toy.

The adventurers handed the Adelie penguin a stuffed toy in the Antarctic and watched in awe as it snuggled with it.
They also made a carving in the ice of the figure 100 in celebration the centenary of Australian explorer Douglas Mawson.
In fine weather, the team was flown by helicopter across 20km of sea ice from the Aurora Australia this morning.
Cloud and fog has prevented the party from reaching the huts for the past three days.
The team, led by Australian Antarctic Division director Tony Fleming, gathered outside Mawson's hut for the ceremony as Adelie penguins wandered about from their nearby rookeries.
The huts are nestled among rocks that are the few stretches of land exposed on Commonwealth Bay.

Aurora Australis

The team from the Aurora Australis take photos of an Adelie penguin after getting onto fast ice which the ship has settled into at Commonwealth Bay 20 klms from Mawson's Hut in Antarctica. Picture: AAP

Source: AAP

source

Dogs maim exhausted penguins--Horrible!

2012-01-15T22:16:00.004-06:00

Monday 16th Jan, 2012 | By Phillipa Yalden

There are four little blue penguins in the care of the wildlife centre in Oropi after they were attacked by uncontrolled dogs on Western Bay of Plenty beaches.

Centre operator Chrissy Jefferson says dogs off their leads are always a menace for penguins, but the problem is greater this year owing to the Rena disaster.

A blind little blue penguin in care after a dog bit its head, causing it to lose its eyesight.

“We usually get about 10 penguins in care from dog attacks over the season, however, this year there are more as more penguins are coming ashore due to what is in the water.”
The most recent known attack happened at Waihi Beach on Tuesday last week when a dog went into a penguin burrow and pulled a young little blue penguin out with its teeth.
“All of its lower abdomen and its back legs are cut to shreds,” says Chrissy.

“The dog had ripped the claws off the flippers, and there are distinct bite marks on the stomach.”
Chrissy says juvenile penguins are at risk during summer when they come ashore to rest.
“A lot of the penguins are coming ashore, very, very weak and under-nourished.
“They are making it to the beach, they are worn out and don’t have the strength to carry on any further until they have a rest.”

They seek refuge in burrows and Chrissy says it is unusual for a dog to go all the way into one of these to pull a penguin out.
The attacks usually occur on the beach surface and sometimes the injuries are severe.
“I have blind penguins where dogs have grabbed them by the head and they have lost their eyes.”

Wildlife carer Chrissy Jefferson with two six-month-old little blue penguins injured in dog attacks on Bay of Plenty beaches.

Chrissy owns seven dogs and she says owners must take up the responsibility of keeping their pets under control at the beach at all times.
“I am an absolute dog lover, but even with my dogs I would not have them running loose.
“I have no problem with running dogs on the beach if there are responsible owners and the dogs are under control – if the dog is 2km down the beach there is no control.”

Chrissy says penguins already have to deal with the hazards inflicted by the Rena and people should be more respectful of wildlife.
Tauranga City Council animal services manager Brent Lincoln is aware of the risk dogs pose to penguins and is taking steps to protect the wildlife.

“Any situation where a dog is harassing wildlife is a concern for us.”
Brent says no formal complaints have been made in regards to dogs attacking penguins, but he will be investigating to find out which areas of the beach are most vulnerable.
He will then increase the number of patrols in those areas.

“If we receive a complaint about any dogs misbehaving we will investigate.”
Under Tauranga City Council bylaws people are not required to have their dog on a lead while at the beach.
“The dog can be off the lead as long as it is under voice control and the dog is not causing any risk to wildlife or beachgoers.”
Dogs are prohibited from Pilot Bay, Mauao and Mount Maunganui Main Beach up to Leisure Island.
Brent recommends people do keep their dogs on a lead while at the beach, and keep an eye out for any dangerous behaviour and report it to the council.

Chrissy says the penguin pulled from the burrow by a dog last week looks set to make a full recovery and is on antibiotics and recovering at the centre.
There are 10 penguins in the centre’s care with four there from dog attack and the other six for other reasons.
It has a capacity to care for 48 penguins.

source

Six Gentoo penguins arrive at Sofia Zoo

2012-01-15T22:15:00.001-06:00

Picture: FOCUS News Agency

15 January 2012 | FOCUS News Agency

Home / Bulgaria

Sofia. Six Gentoo penguins have arrived at Sofia Zoo for a temporary stay, Sofia Zoo Director Dr Ivan Ivanov announced for FOCUS News Agency.

The birds arrived at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday with a special charter flight from a British zoo. The penguins are agend 6 to 10 months and are 60 cm to 80 cm tall.

“They are very beautiful with yellow beaks. These are classical pensions, which we have seen in the ice-cream commercials,” Ivanov explained.

The Gentoo penguins are the third largest species of penguin after the two giant species, the Emperor Penguin and the King Penguin.

“Our colleagues have placed stickers alarming that ‘these birds bite’. We used gloves to take them out. Each penguin was measured and checked – they have microchips,” the zoo chief commented further.

He added that the penguins adapted to the new environment very fast and rushed to the pool immediately.
The most important requirement for the breeding and keeping of these penguins is to avoid putting new objects in their cage, because they are very curious and they swallow everything they see.

“It is the first time we receive Gentoo penguins and we did not dare taking a big number,” Ivanov said.
The six penguins will be exposed at the Sofia Zoo for two months. After that they will be replaced with other eight and then other ten.

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-15T10:04:00.001-06:00

African penguin posing, a photo by D70 on Flickr.

In honor of the good folks at "Penguin Promises."

Check out this new blog! It's Penguin Awesomeness!

2012-01-15T09:50:00.000-06:00

Like Penguins? Want to help the little guys out? Then look no further. Thanks to a new Twitter friend, (@julagabby), I have been alerted to a site whose main purpose is to support the African Penguin.

Here is their slogan and numerous ways you can follow their work:

Penguin Promises We don't want your money honey, we want your love

Twitter

FacebookPage

Flickr

Youtube

Subscribe...

Subscribe via RSS

Subscribe by email »
Get the latest updates in your email box automatically.

... and to show that these folks are legit, they are endorsed by other groups of penguin people:

And finally, here is their slogan for the much needed work they do:

UD researcher part of effort to study Antarctica's penguins

2012-01-15T09:14:00.001-06:00

Jan. 14, 2012 |

Matthew Oliver, assistant professor of oceanography at the University of Delaware, poses with Gentoo penguins in Antarctica. / COURTESY OF DONNA PATTERSON

Written by MOLLY MURRAY

The News Journal

Oliver looks at a satellite image of an island off the western coast of Antarctica that shows the area where the penguins he studies are being tracked. / THE NEWS JOURNAL/BOB HERBERT

An Adélie penguin. / SAMUEL BLANC PHOTO -->

Matthew Oliver speaks live with Travis Miles, a graduate student at the Rutgers Institute of Marine and Coastal Science, about the current conditions in Antarctica. Miles is working on the joint research project and is based at Palmer Station area. Oliver was in Antarctica last year.

THE NEWS JOURNAL/BOB HERBERT

From a research lab in Lewes, oceanographer Matthew Oliver zooms in on an island off the western coast of Antarctica to check on the Adélie penguins he studies.
"See those pink spots?" he asks. "That's krill scat."

It's a sure sign that these penguins, which feed on krill, have been on this little patch of land recently. Scat is a polite word for penguin poop, and krill gives it a pink cast. Lots of penguins mean lots of pink on satellite images of the normally white and slate gray landscape.
Oliver, an assistant professor of oceanography at the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean and the Environment, is tracking the plankton, krill and penguin food web along with salinity, water temperature and chlorophyll levels in this part of Antarctica as part of a multiyear, multiresearch institution effort.

But what he really hopes to gain is an ecological snapshot of the habitat and the environment.
Antarctica is cooling in some areas, scientists believe, because of the hole in the Earth's protective ozone layer. It is warming in others. Climate drivers like El Niño and La Niña and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation also play a role in seasonal variability.

What scientists know for sure is that surface-water temperatures in the southern ocean around Antarctica are getting warmer and less salty, there is more precipitation, and there are shifts in the ice patterns.
What does this mean for the penguins?

Some species aren't doing as well as others in some locations because of shifts in the environment.
Adélie penguins that are part of Oliver's research are one example.
These birds -- which weigh about 10 pounds and stand 2 feet tall -- favor an ice-rich habitat, said Megan Cimino, one of Oliver's graduate students who is just starting her doctoral studies.

Around Palmer Station, the focus of Oliver's research, the bird populations are declining.
"They are either dying or moving somewhere else," Cimino said.
One hypothesis is that they may disappear from the Palmer Station area.
Oliver said there are colonies farther south that are doing great.
"We're seeing pretty big shifts," he said.

To do the research, Oliver and a team of scientists from other universities rely on high-tech tools. They attach small tracking devices -- boxes about the size of a Snickers bar -- to the penguins, and they can follow their movements for days. The transmitters are recovered and redeployed on different penguins -- so many birds are tracked over the Antarctic spring and summer.
The transmitters allow the researchers to monitor bird movement by computer tracking.
Doug White, a research associate who runs the university's ocean information center, said the transmitters send out location signals fed to computers.

On the screen, the path each bird has traveled is color-coded and makes a jagged up-and-back pattern.
Meanwhile, a bright yellow, torpedo-like device called a glider is deployed into the water. It takes repeated readings on temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen and chlorophyll.
It, too, is transmitted to laptop computers. Its path also is shown on the map.
Satellite imagery provides a snapshot over time of the changing landscape.
These pieces of the puzzle are all stitched together with a goal of getting a clearer picture of the habitat in the area around Palmer Station.

Cimino said one reason it is important to look at all the variables is that maybe it's less krill that's driving this shift among the penguins or maybe there are different strategies that the three species of penguins in the area -- the Adélies, Gentoos and Chinstraps -- use.
"It wasn't that long ago that we didn't even know where these birds went," Oliver said.
Whatever is going on, the Palmer Station area seems a less hospitable habitat for the Adélies and more suitable for the Gentoos and Chinstraps, he said.

Among the signals they are watching for are where the birds forage for food and whether there is something unique in the current that drives their quest for krill, he said.
"The animals are a window into the ecosystem," said Travis Miles, a graduate student at the Rutgers Institute of Marine and Coastal Science. Miles is working on the joint research project and is based at Palmer Station. "It's all tied together."
Oliver's part in the project is a three-year oceanographic project through the NASA Biodiversity research program.

The work is designed to discover the ecological shifts that are driving the bird movement. The work includes data gathered from U.S. satellites.
Oliver was in Antarctica last year. This year, other research teams are gathering information on the ground and feeding it back to the University of Delaware.

source

How a heroic hunt for penguin eggs became 'the worst journey in the world'

2012-01-15T09:05:00.002-06:00

Scott centennial at Natural History Museum recalls horrific trip across polar wastes to prove link between birds and reptiles

Robin McKie,

science editorguardian.co.uk,

Saturday 14 January 2012

Bill Wilson, Henry Bowers and Apsley Cherry-Garrard pictured as they set off on their mission to Cape Crozier. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty

Henry Bowers, Apsley Cherry-Garrard and Bill Wilson took 35 days to collect three emperor penguin eggs in July 1911. In the middle of the Antarctic winter, they had to survive intense blizzards and temperatures that plunged to –60C. It was pitch black and the three had to navigate by candlelight and the stars. They took turns falling into crevasses. Cherry's teeth chattered so violently that they shattered, while Wilson was blinded in one eye by a blob of boiling blubber from a camp stove.

In the end, the three men – members of Robert Scott's doomed expedition to the south pole – returned to their base camp, utterly exhausted and close to death, with the three penguin eggs packed in their sleds. Cherry never recovered from the ordeal – which he vividly described in his book, The Worst Journey in the World – while Wilson and Bowers died with Scott on his final trek back from the pole.

The eggs were supposed to reveal the evolutionary links between reptiles and birds but their collection nearly killed the journey's participants. They remain some of the most precious ornithological specimens on the planet and, for the first time, one will be put on public display when it will form the cornerstone of a special 100th anniversary exhibition, Scott's Last Expedition, which opens at the Natural History Museum, London.
"Ours is the world's biggest collections of eggs, with 1.5 million specimens – and many of these were brought back by individuals who went through extraordinary hardship to retrieve them," said Douglas Russell, curator of the museum's egg collection. "However, of all the 300,000 clutches of eggs we have here, the ones that generate the most inquiries from the public – by a long way – are the three emperor penguin eggs brought back from Scott's expedition. That interest is due to the fame they acquired through The Worst Journey in the World. Some people want to check we still have the eggs, others want us to admit we have lost them. Now, for the very first time, they will get their chance to see the real thing."

Scott's Last Expedition opens exactly 100 years after Scott and four colleagues reached the pole – on 17 January 1912 – only to discover that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had got there first. All five perished on their return journey. Displays at the museum will include a reconstruction of Scott's base camp hut, expedition photographs and specimens.

However, for many visitors the complete shell from one of the eggs returned by Cherry, Bowers and Wilson will be the show's high point. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the egg," said Elin Simonsson, the exhibition's curator. "Then, after the exhibition closes, it will be displayed permanently in our new Treasures gallery."

As for the other two eggs, they will be kept in storage for occasional study by researchers.

At the time of the winter trip, it was thought the emperor penguin was one of the planet's most primitive birds and that analysis of its embryos would reveal links between all birds and their reptile predecessors. However, the emperor penguin lays its eggs in June, in the Antarctic midwinter, hence the decision to make the 70-mile trip from Scott's base camp on Ross Island to the penguin colony at Cape Crozier during the worst possible weather. Scott was initially opposed to the plan, but was convinced by Wilson, the trip's zoologist, to go ahead because he thought the eggs would play a key role in understanding how species evolve.

So, at midday on 27 June 1911, Cherry, Bowers and Wilson, with two sleds of food and equipment, left base camp and trudged into a freezing, pitch-black, gale-battered nightmare. The thick, cloying snow meant they could only pull one sled at time. So they had to proceed in relay, gaining only one mile for every three they walked. The average temperature for the trip was –40C, added Russell. The impact on the men was horrific, as Cherry's biographer, Sara Wheeler, notes. "It took him 45 minutes to chip his way into his sleeping bag each night, as during the day it froze flat like a slab of tombstone granite."

Then, as they reached their target, their tent blew away and the men lay down to die. For two days they lay in their sleeping bags without food or cover until there was a lull in the blizzard and Bowers found their tent. "Our lives had been taken away and given back to us," Cherry wrote.

They reached the emperor penguin colony by climbing the huge walls of ice that surrounded it and they snatched five eggs. Cherry dropped two, but the others were returned to the team's sleds. The three staggered into base camp on 1 August 1911. Their frozen clothes had to be cut from their bodies. "Cherry looked about 30 years older than he had when he had set off, his cadaverous face scarred and corrugated, nose dark, eyes dull and hands white and wrinkled. His toenails were falling off and his fingers were useless," Wheeler notes.

Cherry was in no shape to go on the final journey to the pole, although he found the strength to take part in the expedition that set out in late October 1912 to find what had happened to Scott and his men. He was first into the tent where Scott lay dead with Bowers and Wilson. Cherry was devastated. "He had to find redemption in the journey or it would all have been a colossal waste of time," states Wheeler. "Later, after his two companions died, that thought became unbearable."

Cherry, who had no scientific training, took responsibility for the eggs and presented them to the Natural History Museum in 1913. At first a junior assistant refused to take the specimens. Then a senior member of staff made him wait in a corridor while he talked to a more important person. Eventually Cherry extracted a receipt. "I handed over the Cape Crozier embryos, which nearly cost three men their lives and cost one man his health, to your museum personally and … your representative never even said thanks," Cherry later wrote to the museum.

It became one of the infamous moments in museum history, Russell admits. In fact, another 21 years would pass before the eggs were studied and the results published. Their first recipient, Richard Asherton, of Cambridge University, had the embryos removed from the shells and slides made from them but died before he could analyse them.

The eggs were then kept in storage while occasional scientists were asked to study them. "It was difficult to find the right specialist," says Russell. Eventually, in 1934, the zoologist CW Parsons analysed them and concluded that "they did not greatly add to our understanding of penguin embryology". For good measure, scientists no longer believe that embryos help much in studying a species' evolutionary history.

However, Russell added that the specimens were used in a later study of emperor penguins and were reckoned to be useful. "Ultimately, though, they did not provide the information that was hoped for them. On the other hand, they are still here for more study and reinterpretation. In that sense, they are invaluable."

Natural disasters

The Natural History Museum egg collection has been assembled by men and women who went through extraordinary hardships to return specimens. Many died in the process.

Edward Stuart-Baker, a pioneer of Indian ornithology, had an arm bitten off by a leopard while collecting but survived by pushing it down the animal's throat. He was also tossed by a bison and trampled by a rhinoceros. He died aged 80 in 1944.

Carl Hunstein Collected several new species of birds of paradise for the Natural History Museum but was killed in 1888 in New Britain when a tidal wave swept the beach where he had camped with his collection.
John Hanning Speke During his expedition to Somalia he collected 36 bird species before he was captured by tribesmen and stabbed 11 times with spears. He escaped. Later, he became temporarily deaf after a beetle crawled into his ear and he tried to remove it with a knife.

Richard Smithwick An American ornithologist in the late 1800s, he had his career cut short when he was found with only his feet sticking out of a sandbank in Virginia, smothered to death while attempting to collect eggs from a belted kingfisher nest. He was 22.

source

Taking a Virtual Trip to South Georgia Island

2012-01-15T09:01:00.004-06:00

PROVIDED PHOTO BY GARY GULLET

The King Penguin Colony on Salisbury Plain is the second largest breeding colony on South Georgia.

PROVIDED PHOTO BY GARY GULLET

The King Penguin has some of the most beautiful markings of the species.

PROVIDED PHOTO BY GARY GULLET

Gold Harbour was named for the color of the light reflecting from the walls of the harbor.

PROVIDED PHOTO BY GARY GULLET

The Antarctic Fur Seal fiercely defends its territory in breeding season.

By Gary Gullett

RRSTAR.COM

Posted Jan 14, 2012

After departing the Falkland Islands, we started the two-day sea voyage to South Georgia. The South Georgia adventure included people falling into frigid waters, raucous penguin colonies and some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

Somewhere along the route, we also crossed the Antarctic Convergence.

The Antarctic Convergence is generally accepted as the zone where the cold waters of the Southern Ocean meet the warmer waters of the bordering oceans, and it’s is a biologically significant area.

The zone is approximately 25 miles wide, varying somewhat in latitude seasonally. The precise location at any given place and time is made evident by the sudden drop in temperature from north to south, and we could certainly tell the temperatures had dropped along the route. Antarctic waters predominantly sink beneath the warmer waters, and these zones of mixing and upwelling create a zone very high in marine productivity, especially for Antarctic krill. The abundance of krill is one of the main reasons that the Antarctic is so rich with marine life. This small, shrimp-like crustacean is near the bottom of the food chain and provides a steady diet for the whales, seals, penguins, squid and fish.

Because of the remote location — and the fact that there is not enough flat land available to build an airport — visitors to South Georgia arrive by ship. Only about 5,000 visitors a year venture to these islands, and it is arguably the most beautiful place on the planet. It is 104 miles long and between one to 23 miles wide, with no native human population. Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms, or the measure of the health of a given ecosystem, and South Georgia is said to have one of the greatest biodiversity systems in the world.

South Georgia was a sealers’ base as well as a whalers’ base beginning in 1904 and was active until whaling ended in the 1960s. There were seven whaling stations here, and they were all located on the more protected north coast harbors. With the end of the whaling industry, the stations were abandoned. Apart from a few preserved buildings, such as the museum and church at Grytviken, only their decaying remains survive.

Vegetation on South Georgia is limited to grasses, mosses, lichens, ferns and a few other small flowering plants. There are no trees or shrubs.

South Georgia supports an amazing array of seabirds, including many varieties of penguins, petrels, and albatross. The King Penguin rookeries are in operation year-round, and the two largest colonies in the world are on South Georgia Island. There is one songbird that is unique to the archipelago, the South Georgia pipit, and a duck, the South Georgia pintail.

Seals are abundant on the islands, and we walked past many fur and elephant seals. Many of the seals defend their territories in the breeding season, and because some of the seals were protective, a few of these walks got quite spirited.

As many as 250,000 king penguins are spread across this vast area during the molting season, making it South Georgia’s second largest king rookery. Salisbury Plain is a huge, flat expanse of green spreading out in front of the Grace Glacier. We could see thousands upon thousands of king penguins from the tussock-covered hillside. It is hard to imagine the noise at such a huge colony of birds, but the noise (and the smell) are both powerful.

Penguins have more feathers than most other birds, which help keep water away from the skin and insulate the bird. These feathers wear out over the course of a year, and a new feather will grow under the old one, pushing it out. The molt is patchy and can give individual penguins a scruffy look. Penguins don’t enter the water to feed during the molt, and this period of fasting is from 13 to 34 days, depending on the species.

Stromness is a former whaling station, and it became a ship repair yard until it closed in 1961. However, it is most famous as the finish of Ernest Shackleton’s epic crossing of South Georgia.
Grytviken is home to the island’s first and longest running whaling station. It operated from 1904-65, had a peak of 300 employees and is the only whaling station that can be visited in South Georgia.

Although a whole whale could be butchered in a little as 20 minutes, it was sometimes hard to keep pace with the catcher boats. As many as four dozen whales might be brought in at once, with the whole of Grytviken Bay covered by carcasses. Signs are positioned to explain the working of the station

In January 1922, during a later expedition, Shackleton died on board ship off South Georgia. He is buried at Grytviken.

Saint Andrews Bay is two miles wide, and had the largest breeding colony of King Penguins on South Georgia.

Gold Harbour got its name because the sun’s rays make the surrounding cliffs yellow with their light in the morning and evening. Like each of our previous stops, there were great numbers and varieties of wildlife, including a nesting sooty albatross that we saw from very close proximity. We left South Georgia, and were now on our way to the harshest place on earth. Next week, the final installment of this great trip to Antarctica.

Gary Gullett is a photography instructor at Rock Valley College, and president of the Photo Safari Network. He can be reached at 213-470-6704, ext. 503 or gary@photosafarinetwork.com.

source

Video: Mystic Aquarium Penguin Sporting A Purple Boot

2012-01-15T08:47:00.003-06:00

Penguin with ruptured tendons is fitted with a supportive boot

ByBree Shirvell
January 14, 2012
source

This Week's Pencognito!

2012-01-14T20:16:00.001-06:00

Please join Jen and all the pengies by clicking here!

Teva Execs Design Corrective Boot For Adorable Baby Penguin [VIDEO]

2012-01-14T20:11:00.001-06:00

January 13th | by Amy Tennery

In a move that’s upped the stakes for corporate philanthropy/adorableness, Teva execs have designed and outfitted a baby penguin with a specialty boot to correct his flipper disorder. All together now, awwww.

Lucky, a young penguin at the Santa Barbara Zoo, was having a rough go of it after his leg stopped developing normally, according to the video below (courtesy of Teva). That’s when Teva (those folks who make the velcro-sandals you see everywhere) stepped in to design a shoe that would allow plucky Lucky to operate his foot functionally.

The shoemakers went through six different prototypes, before finding one that kept Lucky happy.
“We treated Lucky just like we’d treat any customer,” explains Stuart Jenkins, vice president of business development at Teva.

What’s that? Dust in your eyes? Yea, me too. Weird.
source

Video of Leucistic Chinstrap Penguin

2012-01-14T20:08:00.002-06:00

White Penguin Spotted In Antarctica (PHOTO/ VIDEO)

First Posted: 1/13/12

This penguin seems to have decided to go against the grain, sporting a cream tux instead of the traditional black and white as he waddles around Antarctica.

This rare, nearly all-white leucistic Chinstrap penguin was snapped by naturalist David Stephens on Lindblad Expeditions’ National Geographic Explorer at the Aitcho Islands this week.

According to Expeditions, the penguin isn't quite albino as it has "pigmented eyes and a washed-out version of a Chinstrap penguin's coloring pattern."

Chinstrap penguins usually sport a black-and-white coloring that offers camouflage while they dive for fish. "Many wondered about this unusual bird's chances of success," Stephens wrote to the press. "While odd coloration may make fishing a bit more difficult, leucistic birds are regularly found breeding normally."

Another all-white marine creature was spotted recently off the southern coast of South America. The Associated Press reports the finding of an "extremely rare example of an albino dolphin among an endangered species" by Brazilian biologists.

Over this past Christmas, baby Snowy, the all-white reindeer, took up residence in the UK. The chances of a snow white reindeer being born is one in 10,000 according to Snowy's owner, Mark Noble.

Last year, Myanmar warmly welcomed two rare white elephants as a sign of peace, the Associated Press reported. Their elephants, traditional symbols of power and prosperity, had their appearances linked to the country's improving foreign relations.

Check out some other all-white creatures captured on camera here.

source

Scientists train cameras on Adelie penguin

2012-01-14T20:05:00.000-06:00

Fri Jan 13 2012

ABOARD THE AURORA AUSTRALIS, Southern Ocean, Jan 13 AAP - The cute and inquisitive Adelie penguin is a well-known camera magnet in the Antarctic, waddling about or tobogganing on the ice to the delight of tourists.

Now Australian scientists studying the birds hope that automatic cameras spying on their rookeries will help assess their breeding success and provide a warning of any threats to their welfare from climate change or krill fishing.

Such cameras are already taking daily pictures at the nesting sites near the three Australian Antarctic stations of Mawson, Davis and Casey, but researchers want to see an international network of such camera recorders across Antarctica.

Australian Antarctic Division ecologist Colin Southwell, who is on a marine science voyage aboard the icebreaker Aurora Australis, says there are probably more than 10 million Adelie penguins around the southern continent.

But he says there's been an observed decline in Adelie and Chinstrap penguin numbers on the Antarctic Peninsula off the tip of South America, along with a significant decline there in krill, one of their main food sources.

The major krill fisheries operate off the peninsula but it's also an area of observed sea ice decline, put down to the effects of climate change.

"Sea ice is a krill habitat so it's thought if the sea ice is reduced there's less habitat for krill so there's less food for the penguins," Dr Southwell told AAP.

He said Adelie numbers in east Antarctica, where there is no krill fishing at present, appeared to be rising but it was important to monitor penguin populations there over the long term so future threats to their wellbeing could be pinpointed.

"Cameras will give us an idea of breeding success, with daily photographs allowing us to count nests at the beginning of the season and the number of chicks at the end of the season."

The cameras, fitted with solar panels, could operate over a number of years and save the expense of researchers observing birds on site, Dr Southwell said.

He said if poor breeding success or changed breeding patterns were observed that could not be explained by natural causes, they might be linked to reduced food availability caused by the overfishing of krill or to climate change impacts such as reduced ice cover.

Climate change was changing breeding patterns in many species across the world, Dr Southwell said.
If overfishing of krill was identified as a threat to penguins, fishing quotas could be imposed through the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) to which more than 30 countries subscribe, including Australia.

Dr Southwell said krill was also an important food source for seals, whales and other predators but they were not as easy to monitor as Adelie penguins, which were an indicator species when it came to threats such as overfishing and climate change impacts.

He said it was hoped the camera monitoring concept would be taken up by CCAMLR.

The Australian Antarctic Division had given two penguin-watching cameras to French and US researchers to trial them on the Antarctic Peninsula in a bid to promote their expanded use.

source

St. Louis Penguins Play in Snow (video)

2012-01-14T19:54:00.001-06:00

Image of the Day

2012-01-14T07:14:00.001-06:00

die farben der pinguine, a photo by yellobird on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2012-01-13T13:23:00.001-06:00

Galapagos penguin, a photo by nicnac1000 on Flickr.

Maryland Zoo in Baltimore’s exhibit showcases personable breed of penguin

2012-01-13T13:18:00.001-06:00

KEN KOONS/STAFF PHOTO

The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore has one of the largest Africanpenguin colonies in North America

Posted: Thursday, January 12, 2012

By Brandon OlandTimes Staff Writer

BALTIMORE — The 52 African penguins at The Maryland Zoo inBaltimore will chew on shoe laces, hide underneath rocks andskirmish among themselves.
They are a curious, stubborn, squawking lot. The keepers attheir Rock Island habitat, the zoo’s penguin exhibit since 1967,have their hands full. Always.

“This is kind of like having a day care with a bunch of3-year-old kids sometimes,” said Jen Kottyan, the high-energymanager charged with their care.

Yet it’s those same quirks that have allowed the waddling,attention-craving penguins to endear themselves to their humankeepers. Their antics during public feedings draw a crowd no matterthe time of year, including in the winter months when the MarylandZoo was previously closed to visitors.

The zoo is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Fridays through Mondays inJanuary and February for the second consecutive year.

A few of the species, including some African birds andtortoises, are kept indoors during teeth-chattering, cold winterdays. But most of the zoo’s more than 2,500 animals deal withfrigid weather just fine.
The African penguins seem right at home. The species is nativeto the rocky coastline of South Africa and Namibia and itstemperate climate. Only a few penguin species live as far south asAntarctica in the wild.
The zoo’s penguins are free to meander about outside as long astheir 250,000-gallon moat is not completely frozen over. If it getstoo chilly even for them, they can retreat to a heated indoorsanctuary.

When the domesticated penguins spot caretakers and visitorsinside their habitat, many of them wander over. And that’s when thefun starts.

Depending on their moods, the penguins will peck at pant legs,surround their human counterparts or jostle with each other. If oneof their human handlers omits a yell that sounds like a brayingdonkey, the penguins will mimic it.

The high-pitched squawk is the reason why the African penguinsare nicknamed the jackass breed.
“We don’t like to call them that,” Kottyan said, “but the kidsget a kick out of it.”
During a public feeding Friday, the penguins gathered whilecaretakers flung herring, capelin and squid at the group. Thepenguins each eat about a pound of fish each day. Their humanoverseers closely track how much each penguin in the groupeats.

Two of the zoo’s four penguin chicks were brought outside forthe public feeding. Four penguin chicks have been successfully bredthere in recent months, Kottyan said, with the most recent one bornon Christmas Day.

The Maryland Zoo has raised more than 800 chicks and plays arole in the African Penguin Species Survival Plan. The zoo hasraised chicks that are now on display throughout the country atother exhibits.
The Maryland Zoo has the largest collection of African penguinsin the U.S.
The African penguins are threatened due to overfishing andfrequent oil slicks in their home habitats, which happen to be nearbusy shipping routes for crude.

“If they get coated with oil, they want to clean themselves andwind up ingesting it,” Kottyan said.
The plight of the penguin was featured in major motion pictures“March of the Penguins” and “Happy Feet” in the last decade.
Kottyan said zoo visitors took notice.

“We hear the comments even still when we are out in the publicfeeding that our penguins don’t look like the ones from ‘March ofthe Penguins,’” she said.
That’s because they are a completely different breed. “March ofthe Penguins” followed a colony of Emperor penguins in Antarctica.The 2-feet-tall African penguins are roughly half the size of theirEmperor counterparts.

Regardless, Kottyan said the movies sparked an interest in theirplight. African penguins are considered endangered by TheInternational Union for Conservation of Nature.
The penguin exhibit is among the most popular at the zoo,staffers said. A few times each year, the zoo holds Breakfast withthe Penguins programs. This year’s programs are scheduled for 8:30a.m. April 14, July 6-7 and Sept. 8.

“They sell out every single time,” Kottyan said.
During the events, visitors have the opportunity to eatbreakfast, feed the penguins and learn more about their behavior.They discover what their caretakers have known for so long: Thetiny penguins can be rambunctious, loving, inquisitive andmaddening all at once.

“Working with these guys,” keeper Betty Dipple said, “preparesyou for motherhood.”

source

Penguin attacked at Back Beach

2012-01-13T13:13:00.002-06:00

NATALIE FINNIGAN

13/01/2012

SUPPLIED

The bird underwent two rounds of surgery to treat injuries to his abdomen

A little blue penguin is recovering after a savage dog attack on New Plymouth's Back Beach.
The bird underwent two rounds of surgery to treat injuries to his abdomen area after being rushed to Massey University's Wildlife Health Centre in Palmerston North following the attack last Friday.
Dr Brett Gartrell said the bird was lucky the dog grabbed mostly skin and fat rather than the abdomen, otherwise he might not have survived.
''If you can be lucky to be picked up and shaken by a dog then I guess you could say the little fella has been lucky,'' said Dr Gartrell.

''He was in good condition coming up to his moult with quite a bit of weight on. If he didn't have that fat on there would have been damage to his internal organs.''
DOC marine ranger Callum Lilley said a member of the public came across the bird and called the DOC emergency hotline.
''This attack serves as yet another reminder that people need to keep their dogs under control when they are at the beach,'' said Mr Lilley.

''All people have to do is keep their dogs on a leash or at the very least watch and control them closely. People don't like to think that their dog would attack wildlife, but to a dog, its just natural behaviour.''
Dr Gartrell said the bird has a way to go yet as its wounds are deep and infected, but they will know in a few weeks whether he is ready to be released into the wild or will need to be placed in temporary care until he is fully recovered.

Members of the public who come across injured wildlife should DOC's emergency hotline 0800 DOC HOT (36 24 68)

source

Rare white penguin spotted in Antarctica

2012-01-12T14:31:00.000-06:00

David Stephens / Lindblad Expeditions

This rare leucistic Chinstrap penguin spotted in Antarctica on Monday lacks the standard black-and-white coloring of most penguins.

By Joy Jernigan, senior travel editor

Yes, we know, we already posted today's photo of the day. But we liked this shot so much that we wanted to share it with you.

David Stephens, a naturalist aboard Lindblad Expeditions' National Geographic Explorer ship, photographed this rare white Chinstrap penguin on Monday on Antarctica's Aitcho Islands.

"At the water’s edge stood a leucistic Chinstrap," Stephens wrote in the ship's daily expedition report. "This bird was whitish, but not quite an albino. Instead, it had pigmented eyes and a washed-out version of a Chinstrap’s normal pattern. Many wondered about this unusual bird’s chances of success. While odd coloration may make fishing a bit more difficult, leucistic birds are regularly found breeding normally."
A leucistic bird has reduced pigmention, unlike a bird with albinism, which is a lack of skin pigment. The standard black-and-white coloring found on penguins serves as camouflage that aids the bird in fishing, so it's unusual to find a penguin without it.

“It is a fairly rare phenomenon,” said Dyan deNapoli, a penguin expert and author of "The Great Penguin Rescue," who added that the rate of leucism in Chinstrap penguins is about 1 in 146,000. "When I was in Antarctica, I never saw one, and I saw a lot of penguins."

Lindblad Expeditions is an expedition travel company in alliance with National Geographic. Its flagship, the National Geographic Explorer, accommodates 148 guest on voyages to the two polar regions and various nations. Each ship in the fleet carries National Geographic-certified photography instructors, who offer tips to passengers. Voyages focus on the wildlife, nature and culture.

The National Geographic Explorer is currently in the middle of a 14-day voyage to Antarctica.
"Expedition photography is a big component of our expeditions," said Patty Disken-Cahill, spokeswoman for Lindblad Expeditions. "The photography that comes out of our ships is pretty spectacular."

source

It’s penguin time again at Narooma

2012-01-12T14:29:00.002-06:00

11 Jan, 2011

AUSTRALIAN Seabird Rescue (ASR) Far South Coast branch has received quite a few penguins in the last few weeks from local beaches.Most are young juveniles stranded on these beaches and cannot fend for themselves.
This happens when their parents leave the barrow to search for food and cannot get back in time to feed the chicks.

So the young ones go out to feed themselves but are often not ready yet. When people find these little penguins they are often very dehydrated and starving.
It is of the utmost importance that ASR gets these birds into care as soon as possible to give them the best chance of survival.
The volunteers rehydrate them, put them on a special diet and feed them up until they are ready to venture out for themselves.

If you find a penguin on the beach in the day time please try and put it in a safe place and ring 0406 692 179.
The best way to pick up these little birds is to put them in a towel or t-shirt and then in a box of some kind.
Don’t leave them on the beach as foxes and dogs will get them. Make sure to keep people away from them as stress is another big killer for these birds. ASR will send a rescue person as soon as they get the call.
Some other organisations will tell you to leave the bird in its natural environment to let nature take its course, but ASR has specially trained people that specialise in penguins.

Many respond well to a rehabilitation regime that has been devised at the Philip Island penguin rehabilitation hospital, where some of ASR members have been trained.
Remember too: a penguin on a beach in the day time is not a well penguin. These birds feed during the day in the ocean and come out of the water at night to return to their burrows. They are very vulnerable on the beach to foxes and dogs during this transition period and they do not usually put themselves in danger like that unless there is a reason for it.

ASR far south coast looks after any injured sea and shore birds, so if you come across any of those please call 0406 692 179.
ASR is volunteer organisation and donations are always appreciated.

source

Penguin Rescues!

2012-01-12T14:28:00.000-06:00

Rare penguins washing up on South Coast

Roxanne Taylor

Updated January 11, 2012

Photo: The penguins are recovering from their long swim before being released. (Roxanne Taylor: ABC News)

Two rare penguins have been found on beaches in Denmark on the South Coast of Western Australia.

They are believed to be one-year-old Northern Rockhoppers which are normally found on Amsterdam Island in the Indian Ocean, 4,000 kilometers from WA.
Denmark vet David Edmond has taken in the two, which have come ashore to moult, for safety.
"When they come onshore for a moult they usually lose all of their feathers and they can't swim because they're no longer waterproof and they grow a new lot of feathers and that takes about two to four weeks," he said.
"During that period onshore, they'll find somewhere nice and sheltered and they'll sit there nice and quietly.
"So, basically we need to make sure they're somewhere safe and secure where they're not going to get attacked by dogs or foxes."

Out of sorts

The Conservation Council of WA's Nick Dunlop says there could be a number of reasons why the penguins, more commonly known as Moseley penguins, are being found so far out of their usual habitat.
"There are lots of strange things happening in the ocean at the moment due to changing ocean temperatures," he said.
"If they're having trouble finding enough food and it takes them too far away from their breeding islands then they may come ashore and moult on another piece of land somewhere.
"They can't moult in the water because they will drown."
"So, the most likely explanation is they've dispersed further than normal because food is in short supply and when they got up to moulting weight, they've been too far away from their breeding colonies and they've come onshore in Australia on the mainland to replace their feathers."
A researcher and penguin expert at Murdoch University, Belinda Cannell, has recorded a spike in the number of dead penguins turning up on the South West coast.
She says another breed, the Little Penguin, have washed up dead in much higher numbers this year, dotted along the coast from Safety Bay to the mouth of Donnelly River.
Dr Cannell's explanation is the Leeuwin Current which was much stronger in 2010 and early 2011.
The current comes from northern WA bringing warmer water of lower salinity with fewer nutrients, resulting in less food than usual for the penguins.
"It seemed to have some sort of impact on the fish supply that the penguins normally feed on as we had more than normal that were being found along the shoreline apparently dying from starvation, so they're really underweight, no food in their stomachs," she said.
"It's a signal that they're traveling further to find fish supplies of some fish stocks so it's more indicative that there's nothing available for them closer to home."

Trends

Dr Edmond says he's seen an alarming increase in the number of Rockhopper penguins - five in the last 12 months, compared with one or two in the previous 15 years.
"Hopefully it is just a coincidence and it's not that we're having an epidemic of it," he said.
"There's always a concern when we're finding more than one animal.
"I was speaking to DEC as well and there's also been an increase in the number of baby seals that have been stranded over the last 12 months so that also makes a bit of concern, thinking 'is there something else happening out there or is it just the season with the currents the way they are?" he asked.
The author of the Field Guide to Birds of Australia books, Ken Simpson, has spent half of his life researching and cataloging rare penguins.
He says there's been a drop in their numbers.
"All the penguins of the entire world are dropping in numbers dramatically everywhere, almost all, with a couple of exceptions," he said.
"Their numerical total world population of each kind, whether it be from one or two islands or from 30 islands, like the Macaroni Penguins, they're all dropping so it's rare that they're edging into endangerment or areas of concerns."

Theories

Mr Simpson says there are all sorts of theories as to why.
"There's various pollution problems, there may be starvation problems, the odd oil spill doesn't help, some of the seas are becoming a bit more acidic than perhaps they ought to be," he said.
"There's a lot of melt water going, fresh water, around Antarctica at the moment because of the steadily melting bits of the Ross Ice Shelf," he said.
"Slightly warmer water doesn't favor food production, little tiny creatures that feed the fish, plankton size bits and pieces don't grow so well in warm water so it's a great combination of things and it's very hard to pin it down."
Dr Dunlop says a diminished food supply is a concern.
"We do know it's got to do with changes in ocean climate at the time which normally affects food supply, their fish move away or their fish abundance declines," he said.
"There's a consequence in change in sea temperature or change in current flows.
"Normally the climate-induced effects are much greater than the fishery ones but they may actually work in concert in some situations."
He is urging anyone who finds a washed up penguin to keep it cool and contact either Dr Cannell at Murdoch University or the Department of Environment and Conservation so the reasons behind their death can be uncovered.
And, vet David Edmond is organizing to take the two Northern Rockhopper penguins to a nearby island to release them.

source

*******************************************************************************************

Penguin saved a long way from home

SIMON RUNDIN

11 Jan, 2012

WHEN Kelly Laflamme and a few friends went to Yallingup break Shallows last week, they could never have guessed what they were about to find.“We saw something in the ocean and we were wondering what it was,” Kelly said.
“It was struggling so hard in the water, going in and out of shore.”
Finally, it made it into shore and Kelly discovered what it was – a juvenile male Rockhopper penguin, which are normally foreign to this region.
“I was blown away! I thought it was a duck at first,” Kelly said.
“We didn’t know what to do – I was so surprised.
“We took a few photos but he was falling all over the place – we noticed his balance was off and he seemed very discombobulated.
“We called the rangers and they told us to bring him to the vet.
“We wrapped a towel around the little guy and made our way over to the Dunsborough vet’s office.”
The penguin was very lucky that Kelly and her friends saw him.
“He had blisters and sunburn on his feet and a huge bruise on his head,” Kelly said.
“If they hadn’t brought it in it would have definitely died,” said Dunsborough veterinary nurse Melanie Mothersole, who treated the penguin on Friday.
The bird, which was also extremely dehydrated, was treated by the vets for its injuries.
“The day after it was found it seemed a lot brighter,” Melanie said.
The penguin was transferred to Busselton for further rehabilitation, before being moved to Penguin Island in Perth.
Rockhopper penguins are generally found on islands off the coast of South America and Africa, to the south of New Zealand on the Auckland and Antipodes Islands, as well as on islands off the coast of the Antarctic, including Australia’s Heard and Macquarie islands.
“Obviously a current has taken it (away from home),” Melanie said.
“You hardly ever see them down here – I saw one about eight years ago which washed up at Canal Rocks, but this is the next one I’ve seen.
“It was so lost and a long way from home,” Kelly said.
Kelly, who has lived in Dunsborough for the past year, but is originally from Canada, said it was quite an experience.
“It’s the first time I’d ever seen a penguin in the wild,” she said.
“It was really an amazing thing – I’m so happy that we saved him.”

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-12T12:24:00.001-06:00

Isla Magdalena, Magallanes, a photo by Pablo Alée on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2012-01-11T21:12:00.001-06:00

Regal and Magestic, a photo by KiwiPatPhooey on Flickr.

Fledging King Penguin Chicks & their Parents (Video)

2012-01-09T21:24:00.001-06:00

Elaborate penguin exhibit opening at Calgary Zoo in February

2012-01-09T21:18:00.001-06:00

By Jamie Komarnicki, Calgary HeraldJanuary 9, 2012

DECEMBER 28, 2011 -- Five year old Daniel Graves of Chestermere checks out the penguin statues outside Penguin Plunge, the display area for the upcoming penguin exhibit at the Calgary Zoo, Wednesday December 28, 2011.

Story & Photograph by: Ted Rhodes, Calgary Herald

CALGARY — In Edinburgh, some playful penguins are preparing to leave their Scottish zoo home.
Soon, the gentoo penguins will be carefully loaded into specially built kennels and, under the supervision of a Calgary Zoo boss, make their way across the ocean.

In Calgary, they’ll eventually be joined by three other species of the waddling black and white birds from various zoos across the United States and Canada in their new Calgary Zoo digs: Penguin Plunge.
Five years after it was first announced, the $24.5-million exhibit is now due to open in less than six weeks.
Zoo officials are hoping everything will be in place to open Penguin Plunge to the public in time for the Family Day long weekend in mid-February.

The display is a scaled-back version of the massive Arctic Landing plan first envisioned in 2006. That $100-million proposal included polar bears and beluga whales, and a plan for an outdoor body of water the size of a football field. Zoo critics were quick to lambaste the Calgary facility over animal welfare concerns. In the end, it was the price tag — which more than doubled at the height of Calgary’s boom when planning was still in early stages — that sunk Arctic Landing.

Today, the zoo has high hopes for the penguins.

Penguin Plunge has indoor and outdoor homes for the birds where visitors can watch the penguins swim, slide and gobble up fish and squid. It features rocky outcroppings, splashing water fountains and a deep chilly pool.

Inside, light projected on the domed ceiling is programed to glow like Aurora Australis.

Visitors enter into a walk-through exhibit with Plexiglass walls where the penguins swim right past. The pathway has a viewing area, too, where the birds can paddle by underneath.

Up to 50 penguins from four species — gentoo, king, rockhopper and the endangered Humboldt — will take up residence in the new display.

It’s one of the most technically complex exhibits at the zoo.

After a string of deaths and animal mishaps prompted a fiery reproach of the Calgary collection in 2010, zoo officials say they’ve been thorough in their homework and are ready to welcome the lovable flightless birds to the city.

“They’re obviously endearing animals,” said zoo spokeswoman Laurie Skene. “They’re charismatic animals, but there’s a bigger story to tell.”

That story — information about global warming and the imminent threats facing some species of penguins — will be told through an educational component tied to the display.

The four penguin species were chosen in part because the Calgary facility can provide a healthy environment and proper care for them, said Skene. But another part of the decision is the conservation role the zoo hopes to embrace. Humboldts are particularly threatened, while Rockhoppers are beginning to face new challenges to survival, she said.

“Modern zoos are becoming sort of the Noah’s Arks of keeping genetic diversity going for some species that are not now facing extinction in the wild,” said Skene.

Animal welfare groups say they’re concerned the zoo is more focused on cashing in on penguins’ cute factor, buoyed by crowd-pleasing films such as Happy Feet (starring Emperor penguins) and Mr. Popper’s Penguins (featuring gentoo birds).

Of the four species coming to Calgary, for example, only the King penguins spend long periods in cold weather, noted Barry Kent MacKay, Canadian representative of Born Free USA. He said he hoped the Calgary Zoo gave correct information about each species’ true habitat rather than a “cartoonish” version.
Important issues, such as food shortages caused by overfishing or oil spills should be addressed in the display, he contended.

“I don’t like to see these beautiful creatures put into an incorrect environment in terms of what they really live like and then rationalize it as being a conservation or education effort,” said MacKay, a director of Zoocheck Canada, one of the zoo’s fiercest critics.

“What they’re doing is putting these birds into a very contrived and cliched setting and trying to convince people it’s educational.”

The Calgary Zoo has put a great deal of care into developing the exhibit to ensure the safety of the penguins and appeal to each species, said Colleen Baird, one of three new area managers the zoo has hired in the past year.

In the past months, zoo staff have fanned out to penguin collections across the continent and in the United Kingdom to learn from other facilities’ exhibits.

“We’ve learned a lot from other zoos that have experienced penguins,” said Baird.

The rockhoppers, unsurprisingly, prefer the rocky outcroppings, she said.

The gentoos love spending time in the water and close to the shoreline.

“You’ll just see that natural breaking up because of the habitats,” she explained.

The Humboldt penguins are warm-weather birds found living along the Pacific coastal areas of Chile and Peru. They’ll be outside most often in the summer, swimming and diving in the 1.5-metre pool.

King and gentoos need it to be colder all year round. In the warm months, they’ll spend most of their time inside, where the air temperature is kept at a brisk 7C, said Skene.

“We’ll have the ability to vary their habitat and the temperatures they’re experiencing, and still maintain a healthy environment for them,” Skene said.

Penguin exhibits are finicky.

The birds require highly-controlled air and water circulation, said Michael Macek, curator of birds at Missouri’s St. Louis Zoo, which has cared for penguins since 2003.

Like most birds, penguins are susceptible to respiratory infections, and air quality at the exhibit must be pristine, he said. Complex filtration systems are necessary to maintain the water for the pools — and keep the “fecal load” to a minimum, added Macek.'

At Penguin Plunge, an entire floor is dedicated to air handling. Water is carefully circulated and temperature maintained, with different systems for each of the outdoor and indoor pools.

Inside, UV lightning has also been meticulously set up to give the penguins the same type of light cycle they’d get from the sun — an important element to keep the birds on their moulting cycle, Baird explained.

Calgary’s penguins will come from zoos in Syracuse, Seattle, Edinburgh, Montreal, and at least one SeaWorld facility.

Most of them will be delivered by plane, though some will get driven into Canada. A staff member, either from the Calgary Zoo or the penguin’s former home, will oversee each delivery.
“There’s specially built kennels they’re put in and they’ve been accompanied by a staff member each step of the way,” said Baird.

Some Humboldts arrived earlier this month, and are now in quarantine.
All birds from each location will go through a similar quarantine period before the penguins are introduced into the exhibit.

Travel is stressful for the birds, and Skene said the zoo is doing all it can to minimize the risk.
The Calgary Zoo is still putting finishing touches on Penguin Plunge. A fence encircles the new display. At its entrance stands a two-metre-tall, 127 kg., black and white King penguin, gazing down at a baby brown chick.
source

Oiled penguins found near Mauao

2012-01-09T20:24:00.000-06:00

Monday 09th Jan, 2012 | By Andrew Campbell

The rescue of more oiled penguins is getting off to a creaky start.

The former Maritime New Zealand 0800 numbers have been changed, leaving some penguins languishing in hot water cupboards while help is found.

Oiled penguins found washed ashore near Mount Maunganui on Sunday. Photo: Paul Griffiths.

The new number to call for both penguin and container sightings is 0800 333 771.
Tauranga resident Paul Griffiths says he was lucky.
He had just found two oiled penguins while walking around Mount Maunganui on Sunday afternoon.
“We were lucky when we found them – the next person to come strolling along was a clean-up volunteer who knew the contact number for the penguin people,” says Paul. “They just got us to take them home and then they came out here and picked them up.
“We did suggest they put some signs up round there with phone numbers to contact.
“Considering the amount of people walking round there, there’s no phone numbers.

Maritime New Zealand has changed its 0800 numbers for oiled wildlife sightings. Sightings of oiled wildlife, containers and debris should be phoned in to 0800 333 771.

“We’ll definitely be going back around today to have another look – the more people that are out there, the more people that can notice them.”
MNZ has reported five oiled penguins were found on Sunday and another today, all around Mauao. Patrols are on the beaches today looking for more.
“If anybody has one in a hot water cupboard or anywhere else, call the 0800 number immediately and the oiled wildlife team will pick them up,” says MNZ spokesperson Michelle Poole.
“They are out on the beaches patrolling at the moment and I’m sure they will divert to pick them up.”

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-09T08:22:00.001-06:00

42, a photo by lincolndisplayimages.com on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2012-01-08T06:45:00.001-06:00

Rockhopper penguin Patagonia, a photo by Sallyrango on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2012-01-07T06:47:00.001-06:00

"Adorable", a photo by V W Photos. on Flickr.

This Week's Pencognito!

2012-01-07T06:31:00.001-06:00

Please visit Jen and all the Pengies HERE!

'Jaws' the penguin is happy, fat and back on track

2012-01-06T21:14:00.003-06:00

by: Kelly Ryan
From: Herald Sun
January 07, 2012

Here comes "Jaws", a pesky penguin. Picture: Craig Borrow Herald Sun

SWIMMERS feeling safe enjoying Port Phillip Bay in the absence of any recent shark sightings probably had not reckoned on coming across a pesky penguin named "Jaws".

The bird with a dodgy sense of direction was washed ashore at Altona.

Altona Vet Clinic chief Rod Sharpin said Jaws was probably on a training swim from the St Kilda penguin colony and became separated.

Malnourished and underweight, Jaws is being fattened up on four fresh pilchards a day.

She also has regular multi-vitamin jabs and is force-fed a special high-fat diet and fluids.

Dr Sharpin said Jaws was being trained to swim and to dive to catch food in Hobson's Bay wildlife carer Mandy Hall's pool.

"But she either just floats around or rests up on the creepy crawly hose and sleeps," he said.

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-06T12:23:00.001-06:00

Adelie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) feeding its two chicks., a photo by LEXsample on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2012-01-05T13:57:00.001-06:00

Penguin Beach, London Zoo (2011), a photo by Trowbridge Estate on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2012-01-04T09:26:00.001-06:00

Penguin, a photo by AndyboyH on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2012-01-03T23:19:00.001-06:00

King Penguin Chicks, Volunteer Point, a photo by Lou Lou Donut on Flickr.

Attenborough’s Sky 3D King of all Bachelors, a penguin’s guide to dating

2012-01-02T15:20:00.000-06:00

January 1, 2012

By Isabella Blyth Currie

‘The Bachelor King’, premiered on Sky 3D on New Years Eve and repeated on Monday January 2, which follows the life-cycle of an individual penguin, proves yet again that Sir David Attenborough has lived up to his legendary status as Britain’s finest wildlife broadcaster.

At 85, with a wealth of documentaries behind him little remains that Sir David has left unexplored and the King Penguins of sub-Antartic South Georgia are the latest to be added to his extensive repertoire.
The film was not without its challenges, even for Sir David, who has witnessed a series of explosive developments in technology and camera equipment, “I feel hugely privileged to have started my life in 405 black and white and now be working in 3D”, few figures in television today could make such a claim.
Many of the crew, unfamiliar with 3D equipment, faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge in filming their subject. Outside of a studio navigating the harsh terrain of the sub-antartic these challenges take on a completely new dimension.

It is not yet possible to use a long lens with 3D cameras, consequently the crew must be incredibly close to the subject in order to film it, part of the reason why they chose penguins is that the inevitable intrusion into its natural habitat goes largely unnoticed, ‘a penguin as you can see doesn’t care about cameras too much… an ideal subject really.’

The film crew faced the additional difficulty of shooting some scenes underwater, including remarkable footage of an Orca Whale targeting it prey, made all the more difficult by the camera’s housing imploding the first time it was used.

Aware of recent criticisms regarding his previous film ‘Frozen Planet’, Sir David has taken care to reveal the entire process necessary to produce such a narrative and guard himself against any allegations of deception or fraud in his work. ‘We were always aware of what we were trying to do with this film, which was to composite a story and we felt people should be made aware of that at the end of the film. At the same time, any broadcaster after the discussions about Frozen Planet would have made sure there was no misunderstanding.’

The viewer is made aware that the film follows of a select group of penguins and not an individual as the narrative suggests. Again the complexities of such an endeavour become apparent, the story aims to cover the full eighteen month life-cycle of the King Penguin, but of course a film crew can not be stationed for the full amount of time.

Different penguins are used to portray the different stages of their lives. ‘The story is held together with conviction because of the skill of the editor. He makes you think it was the same penguin.’
The film without doubt shows Attenborough’s most splendid skill. His wise and reassuring voice takes us through the journey of the most challenging aspect of the King Penguins life.

Our hero has to reckon with establishing a habitat, finding a mate and nurturing a family, simultaneously fighting off Sub-Antartic predators.

As always Attenborough’s films mark us with a wider resonance, ‘It’s crucially important for our own welfare that we understand the natural world.

Natural history is not just a pastime, its an essential part of someone’s comprehension of the world in which we live and we depend upon that world.’ Herein lies the brilliance of Attenborough’s film-making.

The Bachelor King, Sky 3D, 6pm, Mon January 2

source

It's back to nature for the wildlife on Montague Island

2012-01-02T15:15:00.003-06:00

source

BY CHRISTOPHER KNAUS

02 Jan, 2012

From soaring sea birds to fur seals, dolphins, whales and nesting fairy penguins, the wonder of nature is never far away on Montague Island.The protected island has a long and rich history, stretching back hundreds of years to the Indigenous people of the area, who used it as a sacred ceremonial site and a valuable source of food.

It boasts NSW's largest fairy penguin colony and large populations of Australian and New Zealand fur seals, and locals claim the surrounding waters are the best for whale watching in the state.
Large numbers of seabirds nest, hunt or breed on the island, including crested terns, three species of shearwaters, eagles, peregrine falcons, kestrels and kites.

But the abundant wildlife on the island suffered dramatically in the 1800s, after humans arrived to build and staff a lighthouse, which was completed in 1881 and still stands.
These men brought South African Kikuyu grass to feed their livestock, and shipped mice, rabbits and goats to the island. The thick Kikuyu grass trapped the fairy penguins as they searched for their nests, and their populations declined over the next century.

Now the National Parks and Wildlife Service, with the help of conservation volunteers, is revegetating the island and removing the foreign grass.
About 75 per cent of the Kikuyu grass has been removed, and the fairy penguins have returned, with about 8000 breeding pairs.

Rabbits and mice were eradicated from the island in 2007, while goats were removed in the 1980s.
The island is maintained by a group of four field officers, including Steve Hutcheson and Francois van Zyl, who have helped maintain the lighthouse station and monitor the progress of the restoration program.
''The goats, the rabbits, the mice were introduced and we've been able to get rid of those, but the damage caused by the Kikuyu grass was just unbelievable,'' Mr Hutcheson said.

''It's one of those things, every now and then the environmental warriors actually have a bit of a win, and actually do something good, and we seem to be doing that with the seabird habitat restoration program,'' he said.

View the gallery: Montague Island Nature Reserve

source

Image of the Day

2012-01-02T15:03:00.001-06:00

source

Love me some Adelies!

2012-01-02T13:52:00.001-06:00

This Week's Pencognito!

2012-01-01T08:40:00.001-06:00

Visit Jen and all the pengies here!

Happy New Year! from penguin news today

2011-12-31T22:37:00.003-06:00

Slap Happy Penguin

2011-12-31T22:35:00.001-06:00

Image of the Day

2011-12-31T11:35:00.001-06:00

Untitled, a photo by Thorbjørn Riise Haagensen on Flickr.

Penguin-cam to keep watch on the waddlers

2011-12-30T10:47:00.001-06:00

Jo Chandler

December 30, 2011

Antarctic penguin-cam records the secret life of the Adelie colony. Photo: Angela Wylie

IT SEEMS no one, and nothing, is safe from the all-seeing gaze of remote camera technology. And it doesn't get much more remote than Antarctic penguin CCTV.
Over the past six summers scientists working from the Australian research stations of Mawson, Davis and Casey on the East Antarctic coast have set up a network of cameras to record the secret lives of Adelie penguins living in raucous, crowded suburbs along the icy coast.

Next month - weather and sea ice permitting - the network will be extended with the arrival of a team aboard the Aurora Australis to set up a new camera at Cape Denison, Commonwealth Bay, the infamously inhospitable ''home of the blizzard'' where Sir Douglas Mawson established base camp for his pioneering Australasian Antarctic Expedition a century ago.
This summer Australian expeditioners have again set out from Hobart for Antarctica - these days voyaging both by ship and by air - continuing Mawson's tradition of geographical exploration and scientific studies. The Adelie project is part of an ambitious agenda of summer science by the Australian Antarctic Division and its partners, much of it linked to measuring and documenting the effects of climate change.

''Penguin-cam'' begins rolling each October, long before winter conditions ease enough to allow scientists into the field to conduct survey work. With daylight returned to the continent after the long Antarctic night, the solar-powered cameras are programmed to switch themselves on, primed and ready to capture the moment when the first penguins of the season leap out of the Southern Ocean onto the ice, following powerful instinct to waddle back to their birthplace for another breeding season.

The cameras run to a pre-programmed schedule right through the season until the penguins, now expanded by a new generation, return to the sea and the light fails. The images they collect allow scientists an intimate and unprecedented insight into the phenology of the breeding cycle - how its timing is influenced by climate and other factors - as well as providing critical ''census'' data, glimpses of penguin behaviour, and opportunities to compare the unfolding narratives of populations spread far and wide along the coast and islands.

''We've surveyed over 3000 kilometres of coastline now, and some 2000 islands for the presence or absence of breeding sites, and mapped the current breeding distribution of Adelies,'' says the Antarctic division's Dr Colin Southwell, who oversees the Adelie project and leads a research program that provides ongoing monitoring of seabird status and trends across East Antarctica.

While over on the west of the continent, including along the Antarctic Peninsula, Adelie populations are in worrying decline as the region experiences dramatic warming conditions, with 5-6 degree increases in mean winter air temperatures and decreases in sea ice, a very different story appears to be evolving in the Australian territory along the east.

''We've found substantial increases in Adelie populations across the board over the past three decades or so - quite significant changes,'' says Southwell. ''We've also found that new breeding colonies have been established in some places, but haven't found anywhere that colony sites are no longer used for breeding.''
Just why the story is so different for Adelie populations on the different coasts is a question scientists are still investigating. Adelies have long been regarded as a bellwether for changing conditions, but there may be regional variations in the Adelies' response to environmental change.

''It's still only speculation, but in the west there is much less sea ice, and so a decline in ice with a warming climate will take it below optimal levels for Adelies,'' says Southwell. Adelies are dependent on sea-ice habitats for foraging, but large areas of consolidated sea ice may limit access to the ocean and therefore limit their ability to forage.

''For the east, it could well be that there is more ice than is good for them, and so a decline in ice could - at least initially - be a good thing for Adelies.''

Southwell and his team hope to use the data coming in from the growing camera network, which gains depth and rigour with each passing season, together with older surveys and records to build a more definitive picture of changes in the Adelie populations over the past 30 years, and to then use those to explore and identify the drivers of those changes.

Elephant seals will also be the subject of some in-depth investigation this summer. Scientists are keen to find clues as to why their breeding populations on the sub-Antarctic islands of Macquarie and Kerguelen have fallen by about half over the past 50 years.

A team of researchers from the University of Tasmania is due at Davis station in February to visit the nearby elephant seal colony, where they will observe and examine the seals, hopefully collecting whisker samples - which provide clues on the seals' diet - and fitting satellite tracking tags. Like ''penguin-cam'', these devices allow scientists to monitor hidden aspects of seal life - beaming back information on where the seals travel and forage.

Some seals are also recruited to do deep oceanographic exploration as a sideline, taking water sensors on their travels up and down the water column, and sending back information on temperature and salinity which is critical for scientists wanting to learn more about the character of deep, remote water.

Alison Dean, station leader at Davis, is already supporting another team out in the field exploring creatures at the other end of the biological spectrum - tiny little invertebrates, the most common animals in Antarctica.
''It's a really interesting project looking at dispersal patterns of invertebrates,'' says Dean. Scientists are intrigued as to how the same species might be found in Antarctic environments and in other locations - Australia and New Zealand. ''How does this happen - is it long-distance dispersal, or are the species down here living fossils? This team [of five] are out there in the field for several weeks in some really remote locations finding lots of these little creatures.''

They collect and compare the genetics of the various samples, with the Davis base providing logistics to move from site to site over the summer.

Meanwhile, over at Casey station, a fourth season of aerial survey work into the critical question of East Antarctic ice sheet dynamics - how the largest body of fresh water on Earth might behave in a warming world, arguably the greatest climate conundrum of the moment - is continuing.

Operation ICECAP - ''Investigating the Cropheric Evolution of the Central Antarctic Plate'' - is a collaboration of Australian, American, British and French glaciologists. They fly close transects back and forth over the ice sheet, using various forms of radar to try to peel back the white to map the shape and form of the bedrock deep underneath.

This season the ICECAP crew is also working with NASA to collect surface information for its IceBridge project, which was set up in 2009 to straddle the gap in data collection between the end of the life of NASA's ICESat-1 satellite and the beginning of the operational life of its successor, ICESat-2, in 2016.
The team are also doing some close survey work around the Totten Glacier, one of the largest glaciers on Earth, and one which is a hot spot for scientific interest as a result of significant change, having lowered as much as one or two metres a year in some locations.

''We're looking at the thickness of the ice, particularly where the Totten starts to float near the grounding line, trying to get some idea of the shape and ocean cavity underneath,'' says Dr Tas van Ommen, leader of the AAD's ice core group and ICECAP collaborator.

''There's a fair chance that what is going on is that warm water is intruding under the glacier and causing it to melt from underneath - that that's what is causing the lowering.''

A particular focus this season was to survey the route of an old ground traverse conducted over the Totten back in 1987, and compare the thickness of the glacier recorded on that expedition with present conditions. The flight succeeded in tracking the old route to within 10 metres, collecting data that is yet to be analysed and published.

''To look at those changes over a 25-year period, we might start to get a real handle on longer-term changes. It's important because the Totten is probably the largest change signal we see in East Antarctica, and we don't know a lot about what's driving it at the moment,'' says van Ommen.

''The Totten Glacier is one of the larger glaciers in Antarctica in terms of the amount of mass that it drains off the continent. So even a small percentage shift in the drainage off the Totten adds quite a bit to potential sea level rise.''

Other projects scheduled for the various Australian stations this summer include ongoing programs collecting atmospheric measurements including temperatures using the LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) at Davis, marine science, ice core excavation to measure beryllium levels (which provides a proxy narrative on the levels of solar activity), studies of changes to Antarctic moss and seabird surveys.

source

Baby birds big stars this year at Lowry Park Zoo

2011-12-30T10:43:00.001-06:00

Take a look at this video first... that's one push penguin! HERE

Noa Leibovici, 2, of West Palm Beach checks out Taki, a female penguin born in May at Lowry Park Zoo, during a visit last week.

By Alexandra Zayas, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Thursday, December 29, 2011

[Photos by KATHLEEN FLYNN l Times]

Zookeeper Christine Rogers holds a 2-week-old penguin after weighing it. Under 2 ounces at birth, it now tops a pound.

They're often upstaged by rhinos and elephants and giraffes.
But the aviary at the Lowry Park Zoo — with close to 600 birds, belonging to 135 species — has begun to take a more starring role, celebrating a series of births.
Here's a look back at a year of new life at the zoo, and a look ahead.

Penguin progress

Only once every two days, and for just a few minutes each time, the penguin chick is scooped from beneath its parents, to be weighed and photographed and given a look at the world outside its nest box.
Zookeeper Christine Rogers reached in last Thursday, wearing gloves in anticipation of a biting father, and emerged with a gray bird not much bigger than her hand, with feathers so small, they looked like fuzz.
Hatched Dec. 7, at a weight just under 2 ounces, the chick has fattened to more than a pound. It has begun to crawl, but cannot stand. It does not yet have a name, or a distinct personality. Even its sex, pending a blood test, is undetermined.

Despite all the unknowns, the baby's life plan was etched long before birth: To help prevent the extinction of the African penguin in as little as 15 years.
The chick descended from a line of penguins rescued from a South African oil spill about a decade ago. Decimated by water pollution and commercial fishing, the species is barely hanging on.
The Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits Lowry Park Zoo, has established a "Species Survival Plan" to keep track of African penguins in captivity and recommend ideal genetic pairings for strong offspring.

Matchmaking is tricky. Penguins are monogamous, and over the past two years, the Lowry Park Zoo had to break up three established couples.
But the arranged marriages worked. In 2011, the zoo welcomed its first-ever penguin chicks — three of them — growing the zoo's group to 17.
Taki, a girl hatched in May, loves the company of people. And Marini, a boy hatched in February, is a loner who recently made his first friend, a penguin bachelor named Titan.
One day, next spring or summer, Taki and Marini will begin to eat lots of food, get bowling-ball round, and lose all feathers. For a while, they'll appear to sport awkward buzz cuts. But before long, fancy feathers will grow in.

Then, in a few months, each will join a betrothed in another zoo — Taki at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, and Marini, at the Georgia Aquarium.
Plans have yet to be made for the new chick, whose only responsibility right now is to continue to grow under the dark warmth of parents.

Baby boom

For four years, the greater flamingos in the zoo's African animal habitat area lived in an adults-only community. This summer, the baby boom began. First, one couple hatched an egg. Then, another.
By the end, there were six fluffy flamingo chicks, with legs the color of bubble gum. It will take a year or two for the young ones to look like the others. But their feathers, now gray, are beginning to show highlights of pink.

Also this year, a pair of tarictic hornbills, native to the Indonesian island Sulawesi, nested inside an opening in a zoo prop and sealed it up with mud, leaving only a hole for the male to bring the female food. She stayed in there for three months, sitting on an egg, and in June, hatched a male chick. With his birth, the population of the species in large North American zoos — those accredited by the AZA — jumped to 11.
A pair of sunbitterns, too, raised the zoo's first chick of their species. Lowry Park got a female not long ago, which bonded quickly with her mate; in August, their chick hatched. Keepers have watched her fly out of her nest and, for the first time, flex her feathers in a defensive posture, to show off what appear to be two giant eyes on her wings.

source

Image of the Day

2011-12-29T08:35:00.001-06:00

Pohatu Penguin [3108], a photo by josefrancisco.salgado on Flickr.

City holiday for Rena spill victims

2011-12-28T10:34:00.005-06:00

JESSICA SUTTON

28/12/2011

FAIRFAX NZ/Leilani Hatch

PENGUIN PALACE: Fifteen little blue penguins and a dotterel are taking a break in Palmerston North after being caught up in oily waters after the Rena crisis.

A group of little blue penguins and a dotterell still suffering from ailments after the Rena disaster have been treated to a holiday in Palmerston North.

Staff from Massey University's wildlife centre have been helping hundreds of oiled birds and animals in Tauranga since October 5, when the container ship Rena hit the Astrolabe Reef.
To give staff a break over Christmas, 15 little blue penguins and a dotterel have been brought to Palmerston North for care.
Since October, 313 penguins have been treated and released back into the wild, along with 54 dotterels and four shags. However more than 100 penguins did not survive.

Of the penguins still in captivity, some are recovering from sores on their feet from being on land too long, while the others are enjoying a holiday as the areas they were found in are not yet cleared of oil.
The dotterel is thought to have a fungal pneumonia and is being treated in the wildlife centre's clinic.
To make the penguins feel at home, a makeshift aviary and pools have been set up at the centre's annex at the university's large animal teaching unit.

Centre director Brett Gartrell said the aviary – which included plastic crates as houses, and a pool – was one of the first built when they arrived in Tauranga in October. He said being in captivity was difficult for the penguins, who are used to foraging for food and swimming for hours on end.
"They're tough little buggers," he said. "They'll be keen to head back out [into the ocean]. This isn't their natural environment."

Dr Gartrell said the penguins were swimming in the pools for between one and six hours a day, depending on how recently they were washed of oil.
"When we wash them they lose their water-proofing, and to get that back can take a few weeks."
Penguins' feathers cross over like mesh to create a waterproof layer, meaning the birds can swim for hours on end.
The most recently washed penguins have lost this layer and need to regrow it, otherwise they cannot swim for long.

Although staff have loved looking after the little birds, Dr Gartrell said he would be pleased to see them go – but he is not sure when that will be.
"Those with sores on their feet will be healed in a week or two, but those who have come from areas where there is still oil we don't know. Hopefully no longer than a month. There is still the risk that the other 110 tonnes of oil still on the Rena will wash ashore."

Each bird had been microchipped and tagged and would be taken back to where it was picked up. Massey's wildlife centre is set to reopen on January 3, irrespective of whether Tauranga work is finished.

source

Brrrotherly love in a cold snap of penguins

2011-12-28T10:32:00.003-06:00

Birds of a feather ... two baby Emperor penguins hug

Paul Souders / Barcroft Media

By STEPHEN MOYES

Published: Today

THESE baby penguins are just chillin' as they share a brotherly embrace in temperatures of MINUS 60°C (-76°F).

The cute newborns — like the ones in hit movie Happy Feet Two — were snapped on remote Snow Hill Island in the freezing South Atlantic.
They are part of a colony of Emperor penguins raised by their protective parents.

P-p-p-protect a penguin ... mum and dad unite to look after their baby

Paul Souders / Barcroft Media

Females lay a single egg — and both mum and dad help to look after their offspring.

Gimme shelter ... chick's refuge from icy blasts

Paul Souders / Barcroft Media

Snapper Paul Souders said the scenes he witnessed were "utter magic".

Nappy feet ... newborn bird finds a cosy spot

Paul Souders / Barcroft Media

source

Image of the Day

2011-12-28T09:14:00.001-06:00

Penguin Colwyn Zoo, a photo by Teresa Smalley on Flickr.

Image of the Day

2011-12-27T20:46:00.003-06:00

Penguin numbers continue to climb at Warrnambool's Middle Island

2011-12-26T22:03:00.004-06:00

27 Dec, 2011

By PETER COLLINS

PENGUINS are flocking back to Warrnambool’s Middle Island with the biggest influx since the population was almost wiped out by predators six years ago.An estimated 190 little penguins have arrived for the annual breeding season and at least 17 chicks and nine eggs have been counted so far.

Maremma guardian dogs Eudy and Tula have also returned to the island to protect the colony from foxes and roaming dogs.
More than 600 penguins and short-tailed shearwaters once lived on Middle Island, near Warrnambool’s breakwater, but dog and fox raids reduced penguin numbers to less than 10 by 2005.

Warrnambool City Council and the local Coastcare Landcare group swung into action to help restore the population, with an award-winning Maremma dog project as the centrepiece.
City council officer Justin Harzmeyer said the dogs had been returning to the island every year since the first four-week trial in 2006.
He visits the island twice a day to feed and monitor the dogs.

“It puts our minds at ease knowing the Maremmas are back there watching over them,” he said.
Mr Harzmeyer said he was thrilled to see penguin numbers on the rise. Middle Island has been closed to the public since 2009, but there will be opportunities this summer to see the birds up close.
Morning tours will leave from the Foreshore Pavilion at 10.30am on January 2, 3 and 4 and then at 8.30am on January 9, 10 and 11, but bookings must be made on 5559 4615.

source

Zoo Volunteer 'Penguin Peggy' Taken all over World by Penguin Love

2011-12-26T22:01:00.003-06:00

Dec 26, 2011

Written by Erin Hawley

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A quest has led to a decade of trips for one First Coast couple.
Peggy Wilchek, a volunteer at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, has a specialty - penguins.
"It's just the feeling that they give you," Wilchek explained.

That feeling has taken Wilcheck around the globe. It all started 10 years ago, on a trip to Antarctica with her husband.
"I was awed," Wilchek said. "That nature put together such a beautiful... 'cause King penguins are gorgeous. Their bill plates are orange, their ear patches are golden yellow. You're just in a different world."

Home video from the couple's trips shows not only the visitors' curiosity, but also the penguins'.
"Peggy's busy making friends with an Oakum boy there," Her husband explained in one video, as a large King penguin made his way right up to Wilchek. "They're very curious. We're supposed to keep 15 feet away but you can't do that when they come right up to you!"

The incredible experience sparked what Wilchek calls her Penguin Quest: to see all 18 species of penguins in their natural habitats.
Penguins like the Macaroni, Galapagos and Humbolt have taken her to four continents.
The most extreme experience: a month aboard a Russian icebreaker down into the Weddell Sea. "That was the most challenging trip, but yet the most rewarding because that was the only way to see the Emperor penguins." Wilchek said. "It was an unbelievable experience."

Wilchek's enthusiasm took her around the world and brought her back home to the Jacksonville zoo, where the former nurse found a way to get involved with the zoo's penguins.
"It's just an inside feeling that just kept growing," Wilchek said. "When we would go to places that had aquariums and I would see volunteers. Oh, that was my dream to be a volunteer with penguins. And now I get to do it!"

The zoo's 11 Magellanic penguins need a lot of care. Along with talking to visitors, Peggy helps the staff with things like taking water temperature, feeding and cleaning the rooms.
The retired nurse said scrubbing is something she's knows well.

"You know, at the end of the day when I have all these rooms nice and clean and ready for the penguins, knowing that I've made it cleaner and allowed the staff time to do some of the other things they need to do, that's really important for me."

But no one at the zoo calls her Mrs. Wilchek, or even Peggy. Instead, her dedication has given her a nickname: Penguin Peggy.

Source: First Coast News

Image of the Day

2011-12-26T15:34:00.001-06:00

Happy Feet, a photo by CostaDinos on Flickr.

Happy Feet Two premieres in Australia December 26th

2011-12-25T22:25:00.002-06:00

Film Review & Interview with Robin Williams and George Miller: Happy Feet Two

26 Dec 11 by James Gorman

Happy Feet was the tale of a lonely Emperor Penguin named Mumble (Elijah Wood) whose passion for dancing made him an outcast among with peers and family.
After a journey of self-discovery Mumble ultimately found his place in the world and the film ended on a high note with ample opportunity for a sequel.
Five years later director George Miller has finally given us that sequel and despite what other critics have said, I think it tops, if not succeeds, the original.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
NINETOFIVE’S JAMES GORMAN CHATS WITH ROBIN WILLIAMS AND GEORGE MILLER.

Once again Happy Feet Two introduces the audience to the crisp beautiful landscape of Antarctica, however this time around it is portrayed in 3D.
Times have certainly changed since the last film as this time around all the Emperor Penguins in the community appear to have adopted Mumble’s passion for dancing, with the exception of Mumble’s young son Erik.
After an embracing scenario Erik runs away in search of a more accepting environment and Mumble follows closely behind. Along the way Erik meets The Mighty Sven (Hank Azaria), a penguin who appears to be able to fly.
Realising he has no way of competing with his sons new role model, Mumble prepares to head home, but a catastrophic global event requires all the animals from the Antarctic to band together.
Happy Feet was a simplistic tale about a penguin trying to find his place in the world.
Happy Feet Two brings a lot more to the table in terms of storyline than its predecessor did. Instead of following the life of just one penguin, Miller introduces us to an array of wildlife including two Krill named Will and Bill voiced by Matt Damon and Brad Pitt and a grumpy elephant seal (Richard Carter).

At first I was prepared to jump onto the bandwagon with all the other critics voicing my outrage as to why so much more was added to what should have been another simple coming of age story, but then I stopped and I thought about it.
Happy Feet was not a success just because of a great storyline. The visuals, the sounds, the songs, the cast and the message it told was what made it so special. Happy Feet Two delivers all of those things and more.
The visuals and music have only gotten better with time (Miller confessed that he didn’t have the time or finance while making the first one as he did this time around).
The other thing that really worked in this movie’s favour was the 3D. These days I think that too many film makers are using the technology in their movies just because ‘everyone else is doing it’. Not every film merits the addition of that extra dimension and in some cases it ruins what should be a great movie.
Happy Feet Two was one of the exceptations as the 3D truly gives justice to Millers visually amazing Antarctic landscapes.
Happy Feet Two is a film for anyone and everyone, especially the younger audiences. You don’t need to be a kid at heart to enjoy this toe-tapping movie, just have an open mind and prepare to once again be taken on a journey to the visually stunning South Pole, but this time, in 3D.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Happy Feet Two opens in Australian cinemas December 26.
Starring: Robin Williams, Elijah Wood, Pink, Hank Azaria, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.
Director: George Miller
Rating: G
Run time: 103min
Reviewer Rating: 8.5/10

source

White Christmas on Snow Hill

2011-12-25T22:12:00.002-06:00

At least someone's having a White Christmas: Emperor penguins frolic on Snow Hill in Antarctica

By Gavin Allen

25th December 2011

As Britain enjoys mild weather on December 25, it's good to know that at least someone has had a White Christmas.
However, if you wanted to enjoy the snow with these Emperor penguins you would have to travel 400 miles from civilisation.

Photographed in the freezing South Atlantic waters around the remote South Georgia Island, four days east by boat from the Falklands, the Emperor penguins have such little contact with humans that they come close enough to peck the camera.

Queuing up: Emperor penguin chicks stand on frozen sea ice in Snow Hill Island in the South Atlantic, where temperatures drop to as low as -60C

Give us a cuddle: Two Emperor penguin chicks with wings wrapped around each other

Isolated: The cycle of parenthood among the colony sees females lay a single egg before leaving it behind to undertake a two month hunting expedition

Anchored in a small, protected bay near to a massive rookery on the island, photographer Paul Souders spent two hours diving into the water with the Emperor penguins as the Southern summer turned to winter.

Braving the 1.5 degree celsius water to the point where his hands took one hour to get the feeling back, Souders was stunned by the ease with which the penguins accepted him.
'First off, the water is very, very cold. Barely above freezing,' he said.
'I'd never been in anything like it so it came as a bit of a shock. My face went numb and my hands grew painfully cold.

'But it was utter magic. I'd only ever seen penguins on land and to be honest, they look like idiots there - graceless and clumsy and hilarious.
'But to see them in the water was to see them in their element. They are incredibly graceful, strong swimmers. It's like watching them fly.'

Looking up to his parents: Two Emperor penguins shelter a young chick in the freezing winds

Wait a minute, you've already hatched! This chick huddles on his father's feet, where the eggs are kept warm

Whee! Penguins slide across the frozen sea ice as they travel up to 50 miles to reach the open ocean

White Christmas: This Emperor penguin with its young chick stands on frozen sea ice in Antarctica

The journey to arrive at the spot saw Souders travel for two days, flying from Seattle to Los Angeles to Santiago in Chile and then on to Stanley in the Falklands. Next he hired a yacht which took four days to reach the remote British territory.
'We'd anchored in a small protected bay outside a massive penguin rookery on South Georgia Island,' said Souders.

'It was late in the summer there, and many of the penguins were fat and happy, their chicks mostly grown.
'So they were curious about the boat anchored there, and even more so when I plopped into the water.

'They swam right up to the camera dome and pecked at their reflections.'
Souders felt privileged to be in the same environment as the swimming birds.
'Some were quite curious about me, circling around me as I floated in the sea and coming over to check out their reflection in the glass underwater camera dome,' he said.
'They were all individuals from the nearby rookery, stopping off to check out the new neighbours.

'I can only stress what a privilege it is to do this work, to see wild animals undisturbed in their natural environments.
'Ithink it's critical for photographers to accept our responsibility not to not disturb the animals we encounter, and to encourage everyone to respect and protect the natural world.'

Remote: The penguins are so unused to human interaction that they even looked at their own reflections in photographer Paul Souders' camera lens

March of the penguins: Souders says the penguins look 'clumsy and hilarious' on dry land but are graceful in the water - and they spend a lot of time on the ice as they get to grips with the responsibilities of parenting

Morning constitutional: Penguins take a group stroll along the ice on a sunny arctic morning

source

And thanks to my dear friend, Paul, for sending me the link!!!!

Merry Christmas from Penguin News Today

2011-12-25T00:07:00.002-06:00

From the best birds in the world! (and me, too!)

This Week's Pencognito!

2011-12-24T13:19:00.001-06:00

Please visit Jen and all the pengies by clicking here

SHAME ON SEAWORLD, CALIFORNIA!

2011-12-24T13:05:00.001-06:00

Experts slam penguin 'plucking'

By Isaac Davison

Saturday Dec 24, 2011

File photo / Simon Baker

The shipping of dependent penguin chicks to a controversial American marine park has outraged New Zealand conservationists.
Ten emperor penguins were taken from Cape Washington, Antarctica, and flown to SeaWorld in California via New Zealand last month.
SeaWorld said in an application to the New Zealand Environment Protection Authority (EPA) that it wanted the animals for research purposes.

Conservation group Friends of the Earth said the complex translocation of young, dependent penguins to the other side of the world for research was unethical, if not dubious.
Director Bob Tait said: "We strongly object to the removal of the penguins from their colony, and subjecting them to the ordeals of lengthy jet travel, and condemning them, for profit-driven reasons, to live out the rest of their lives separated from their real colony in an alien environment at SeaWorld, California."

The EPA and Department of Conservation were consulted on the shipment because the penguins travelled through a New Zealand airport. But those government bodies said they had no power over the export of the birds from Antarctic territory outside of the Ross Dependency.
Cath Wallace of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition said the "plucking" of baby birds from their natural habitat showed the difficulty of managing Antarctica's wildlife.

"Antarctica is a reserve for science and nature, not a place for [taking] things from their homes. I think the Minister for the Environment and the EPA need to get some better Antarctic expertise because we are doing nothing there."
SeaWorld's proposal said the 10 birds - which are not listed as endangered - would be integral in a research project to determine lung and air sac volumes in emperor penguins.

Mr Tait said it was unusual that SeaWorld needed to import penguins for research when it had its own emperor penguin breeding programme.
He noted that the American marine park was taking into captivity the same species which New Zealand authorities had recently committed significant resources and funding to release back into the wild.

"We note that Time magazine this month named Happy Feet the runner-up in their annual Animal of the Year list, and the unprecedented concern and efforts spent to try to save the New Zealand emperor penguin when it arrived in New Zealand, and to return it back to its home. SeaWorld do not intend returning the penguins after their 'research'."

The SeaWorld brand has attracted criticism from animal rights groups because it holds most of the world's 50 captive orcas. Two people have been killed in its orca pools.

source

Image of the Day

2011-12-23T09:16:00.001-06:00

;-), a photo by PekingDuck (a.k.a. Gordon) on Flickr.

Wiinterrr's Day

Image of the Day

Rare Penguins return to Milford Sound

Rare Penguins return to Milford Sound

Image of the Day

Endangered Penguins Bond in San Francisco

Jake Richardson

January 27, 2012

What's Gnu at the St. Louis Zoo?

This Week's Pencognito!

Image of the Day

Late winter leads to early arrival of five penguin chicks to Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse

Published: Thursday, January 26, 2012

Image of the Day

Coronado's Very Own Penguin Trainer

Meet Liz Thaete - Coronado's Very Own Penguin Trainer at SeaWorld

Image of the Day

The Frozen Planet...Moves Like Jagger

The Penguin that Knew Exactly Where He Was

Penguin defecates on state Senate floor

Taking care of rambling penguins

Image of the Day

Image of the Day

Can't talk now--I'm off to work the creche

Dubai facility gets ready to host snow penguins

Artificial 25-storey freezing ski hills will have a colony of Antarctic birds year-round in a specially-created area

African Penguin Exhibit At Baltimore Zoo Draws Crowds

January 22, 2012

Image of the Day

Image of the Day

Climate Change-Penguins Confirm Concept from the Ends of the Earth

By Bill Henry

Posted 1 day ago

Turtle Back Zoo's Penguins Featured on CBS

Penguins paint during Penguin Awareness Day for CBS New York

Sydney Aquarium welcomes baby penguins

Harry Potter p-p-p-picks up a penguin!

Daniel Radcliffe makes friends with Antarctic guest on the Jonathan Ross Show

This Week's Pencognito!

Image of the Day

From Penguin Science: Promote the Penguin Population!

Image of the Day

The King Family Go for a Stroll in Cincinnati

Baby Blue Penguins at Sydney Aquarium

Visiting penguin creates real buzz

St. Louis Zoo welcomes baby king penguin

Image of the Day

It's a boy - penguin, that is

Humboldt penguin born at Roger Williams Zoo

C'mon People--the Seals are Winning! :-(

Precious penguins or silly seals? Vote on which is cuter

Image of the Day

Happy Feet tracking firm sold to Canada

By Patrick O'Sullivan

Tuesday Jan 17, 2012

Penguin Videos... Fun stuff!

Image of the Day

Image of the Day

Cute and cuddly: Penguin poses for snap with toy

Aurora Australis

Dogs maim exhausted penguins--Horrible!

Six Gentoo penguins arrive at Sofia Zoo

Image of the Day

Check out this new blog! It's Penguin Awesomeness!

Subscribe...

UD researcher part of effort to study Antarctica's penguins

Matthew Oliver, assistant professor of oceanography at the University of Delaware, poses with Gentoo penguins in Antarctica. / COURTESY OF DONNA PATTERSON

Written by MOLLY MURRAY

The News Journal

Oliver looks at a satellite image of an island off the western coast of Antarctica that shows the area where the penguins he studies are being tracked. / THE NEWS JOURNAL/BOB HERBERT

An Adélie penguin. / SAMUEL BLANC PHOTO -->

How a heroic hunt for penguin eggs became 'the worst journey in the world'

Natural disasters

Taking a Virtual Trip to South Georgia Island

Video: Mystic Aquarium Penguin Sporting A Purple Boot

Penguin with ruptured tendons is fitted with a supportive boot

This Week's Pencognito!

Teva Execs Design Corrective Boot For Adorable Baby Penguin [VIDEO]

January 13th | by Amy Tennery

Video of Leucistic Chinstrap Penguin