The Enquirer/Amie Dworecki
Lauren Waller (left) works on a chinstrap penguin with veterinary technician Jolene Hanna.
Newport Aquarium's penguin love affair
NEWPORT - A mutual love of African penguins
has sparked a relationship between the Newport Aquarium staff and a
South African biologist who is visiting to exchange information about
the endangered species.
Lauren Waller, who monitors the penguins on Dyer Island, off the
coast of South Africa, is learning about them in captivity, while the
aquarium staff discovers more about their habits in the wild.
Waller,
34, works for CapeNature, a public institution responsible for
biodiversity conservation in the Western Cape. She's been working with
the penguins and seabirds on Dyer Island for the last six years.
She believes penguin populations are barometers for the health of the planet.
"The
penguins are kind of showing us that there is an environmental problem,
and everyone needs to take stock and see what their responsibility is."
Through
her visit, the aquarium hopes to learn some field information to
improve its management of the birds. In turn, Waller gets to learn how
aquariums and zoos operate. Both plan to work together to help protect
penguins in the wild.
"We have this great opportunity to educate
people about this bird that has just been placed on the endangered
species list," said Ric Urban, the aquarium's curator of birds and
mammals.
The WAVE Foundation, the aquarium's non-profit arm,
supports the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal
Birds, a rehabilitation center in Cape Town. The foundation has provided
funds for the rescue and rehabilitation of African penguins and other
seabirds. It's also given money for artificial nest boxes to be placed
on Dyer Island.
Waller and Urban will travel this month to Boston,
where they'll speak at the Seventh Annual International Penguin
Conference, being held for the first time in the United States.
Newport Aquarium has four species of penguins, including nine warm weather African penguins.
As a field biologist with African penguins, her work is more hands-off. She monitors about 200 study nests on Dyer Island.
"We
limit our interference and disturbance. When we handle the birds, they
perceive it as an attempt at predation. It's really stressful for them,
so we want to keep our disturbance to a minimum. We do a lot of counts, a
lot of observations from a distance."
Only 26,000 pairs of breeding African penguins remain, Waller said.
African penguins have been affected by a number of adverse conditions, many of them caused by humans.
The
penguins and their chicks burrow in "guano" or penguin poop to shelter
themselves from the heat. But humans have disrupted their habitat,
scraping it for the guano, which is a rich fertilizer. African penguins,
which feed on fish, have also been subjected to pressure by fishing and
by oil spills.
The penguins are found in a small area, ranging
from Namibia to the tip of South Africa. Since African penguins return
to their colony to feed their chicks, they're very range restricted,
Waller said.
"They're a good kind of indicator of the ecosystem,
as a whole, because they aren't able to very quickly adapt to changing
environmental conditions. They will be susceptible to all kinds of
extreme weather conditions," Waller said.
At the aquarium,
penguins are one of the top attractions, as measured by sales of plush
toy penguins and the time guests spend at the penguin exhibit.
Over
the past three years, nearly 30,000 people have taken advantage of a
Penguin Encounter, an up close look at the African penguins for an
additional cost of $25. Part of that ticket price goes toward penguin
conservation.
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