Putting up with serious penguin attitude at the zoo

Summer jobs:

Aileen Donnelly | Aug 4, 2012

Darren Calabrese/National Post

Summer employees, like Aileen Donnelly, work with mischievous, but not dangerous, animals.

In this summer series, the National Post reporters and photographers bring us tales of that annual Canadian rite of passage for young people taking their first dip in the labour pool: The Summer Job.

Holding a smelt in my left hand, I gingerly fold back the head with my thumb, and — lo and behold! — a small hole appears right beside its gill. I gently slide a multivitamin into the opening, then release the head.

I pause to marvel at the convenience nature has afforded penguin keepers who want to ensure their charges receive optimum nutrition (the smelt’s a feeding fish). Then I pick up a second fish, flip back its head and pop in another pill.

Darren Calabrese/National Post

A penguin possibly ponders its escape while Aileen Donnelly ponders hers.

I am spending the day as an undercover Toronto Zoo employee, arriving here at 7:45 a.m. — almost two hours before opening. I’m led through the entrance, past the merry-go-round — sorry, conservation carousel — and through one of the “Do not enter” gates.

We board a golf cart, essential for employees who need to travel across the back roads of the vast 287-hectare zoo.

At the horticulture building, I’m greeted by Alicia Tymstra, a young, vivacious horticulturist dressed in the official zoo gear: tan khakis and olive green golf shirt.

This is Ms. Tymstra’s second summer here. The Toronto Zoo employs about 200 year-round full-time employees, almost double that in the summer.

“A lot of people come to just look at the animals,’’ the third-year UBC Kelowna student says of the horticulturists’ role. ‘‘But if we weren’t here, grass would be sky-high.’’

The hort staff always carry a water bottle, sunscreen, gardening gloves, safety glasses, headphones (for noise reduction) and, of course, a pair of gardening shears in their khaki-coloured zoo-edition shoulder bag, Ms. Tymstra said. And, an edible plant book.

“Wait, what?” I ask.

She picks a few wild raspberries and hands them to me to try. The shrubbery abound with currants, raspberries and serviceberries, Ms. Tymstra said. This year, squirrels made it to the native garden wild strawberries before she could.

The first lesson every budding horticulturist must learn is the difference between a weed and a plant. The second: how to remove the unwanted greenery.

I’m told to dig my fingers deep into the soil, grab the root, twist and pull. The soil is damp so the job should be easier than usual, Ms. Tymstra said.

I slip on my gardening gloves, and confidently grab my first weed. I give it a firm yank and, snap. I look down and the root is still firmly embedded in the soil.

It takes me 20 minutes to amass a small pile of — mostly rootless — weeds. I clearly lack a green thumb.

Darren Calabrese/National Post

Toronto Zoo penguins untie the laces of National Post reporter Aileen Donnelly's sneakers.

So I head over to the South African penguin enclosure, where I’m greeted by zookeeper Brandon Wyatt, who stands tall in a knee-high pair of rubber boots.

Mr. Wyatt has watched over the penguins for a year and a half, but he plans to write his exam to become a Keeper Grade Two so he can take care of dangerous animals: lions and tiger and bears. (Oh, my!)

“A seasonal employee would never be able to work with lions,” he says. “I think the same goes for reporters.”

So that’s why I’m feeding vitamin-stuffed fish to flightless seabirds.
Colby, by far the most prolific eater of the colony, eats 25 fish a day. DJ prefers to retreat to a private area of the enclosure and eat in secret.

I hold out a smelt for one of the chicks, adjust the angle ever so slightly and gently ease the small fish into the bird’s beak until it disappears out of sight.

I pick up another fish, and just as it starts to slide down to throat of a hungry seabird, I experience the worst-case scenario for any penguin keeper: I’m nipped.

I jump up, toss the fish and scare the penguin in front of me. I turn to find the culprit, Eldin, staring at me blankly.

I wander over to the poolside, to have a go at feeding the pelicans. As I try my best to throw the smelt far enough so the large birds can catch the fish in their long, narrow beaks, two of the penguins go to work untying my shoelaces, successfully.

The penguins that live in the Toronto Zoo’s African Savanna are a mischievous group. Pedro — he’s one of the “gay” penguins that drew so much attention to the zoo earlier last fall — is obsessed with doors, and seems ready to make an escape at any moment, Mr. Wyatt said. It seems like they all are and when we exit the exhibit, the colony makes another mad-dash attempt at freedom.

My mock shift ends and I leave Mr. Wyatt to clean the birds’ overnight enclosure. It looks like they had an eventful night.

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This Week's Pencognito!

	Please visit Jen and all the pengies here!

Five Penguins Chicks Hatch at Belfast Zoo

OurAmazingPlanet Staff - Aug 03, 2012

The Belfast Zoological Gardens had a flurry of new birds recently with the hatching of five penguin chicks.

In March this year, Belfast Zoo welcomed 40 Edinburgh penguins to the penguin enclosure, while essential maintenance work was carried out to their Edinburgh pool.

A ‘cracking’ success for Belfast Zoological Gardens, as five gentoo penguin chicks hatch!

CREDIT: Belfast Zoo.

 

Their arrival coincided with the start of the penguin breeding season and keepers immediately began to install nests in the enclosure. The male gentoo penguins then set to work to fill the nests with pebbles and stones. The nests are so prized by females that often male penguins can obtain a mate by offering the female a nice pebble.

 

Belfast Zoo is currently home to 40 'holidaying' Edinburgh Zoo penguins, while essential maintenance work is carried out to their pool.
CREDIT: Belfast Zoo.

"Edinburgh Zoo contacted us when they realised that maintenance work needed to be carried out to their pool. We were already home to 20 gentoo penguins and we were more than happy to accommodate the 'holidaying' birds," said zoo manager, Mark Challis. "We take part in more than 90 breeding programs but this has been an especially successful partnership between the two zoos, as five of Edinburgh Zoo's female birds have welcomed chicks so far. We are hopeful that we will soon hear the pitter patter of many more little feet in the penguin enclosure."

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Toronto Zoo names its new penguins

Kaleigh Rogers
Staff Reporter

August 2, 2012

The Toronto Zoo revealed the names of its newest baby animals Thursday morning.



Two penguin chicks were named today. The bird formerly called “black band” has been officially named Chupa while “blue band” has been renamed Matata. The names don’t have a meaning, but are fun to say.

The names were among many thought up by zoo staff and volunteers and then placed on the zoo’s Facebook page where visitors voted.

Some of the names that did not make the cut were Tuxedo and Icecube for the penguins.
“Those names, while funny, are not necessarily what we were looking for,” Cynthia Shipley, manager of public relations and events for the zoo, explained.

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Island's penguins in decline

Daniel Mercer, The West Australian  

August 3, 2012

Researchers are alarmed at a dramatic decline in the population of little penguins on Penguin Island amid fears the trend could threaten the popular tourist attraction.

In the wake of unprecedented marine heatwaves off WA's south-west coast, experts have warned the collapse of the local population is a harbinger for broader problems of climate change.

Murdoch University research associate Belinda Cannell said the "anomalous" sea temperatures recorded over the past two years had driven away whitebait, the penguins' primary food source.
Dr Cannell, who has studied the penguins since 1994, said the slump had severely reduced the penguins' breeding success and largely driven a fourfold increase in their deaths.

Little penguins remained close to their colonies to feed their chicks each night, but this was being hampered by the lack of whitebait.

She said other explanations for the penguins' plight were more complex and probably included an increase in strikes from boat propellers as the number of people with pleasure craft soared.

According to Dr Cannell, the island's resident population of little penguins, with a smaller group on Garden Island, is the species' northernmost population and could disappear in 30 to 40 years.
"It is likely that we will see a real decline in the population over a shorter time scale, especially if La Nina conditions continue," she said.

With funding for her research into the penguins about to run out, Dr Cannell said she was seeking an extra $360,000 to complete her work into what was causing the decline.

Despite a funding commitment with the City of Rockingham worth $60,000 over three years and support from the Department of Environment and Conservation, Dr Cannell said the money was needed for things such as satellite tagging and monitoring.

Understanding what was happening to the penguins was crucial, she said, because they were a "sentinel" for WA's marine health.

She said climate predictions did not bode well for the colony.

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Harvesting guano to help Peruvian penguins: Saint Louis Zoo digs in

Thu August 2, 2012

By Véronique LaCapra

 

Credit wwarby / Flickr

Humboldt penguins can swim at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. There are only about 40,000 left in the wild.

• Listen

  03:44

Unlike their cold-weather relatives, Humboldt penguins live only in South America, along the rocky Pacific coast of Chile and Peru. The Saint Louis Zoo’s Michael Macek has been monitoring the penguins there, tracking their health and numbers.

Macek is back in Peru again, in a coastal reserve called Punta San Juan, where Humboldt penguins nest by the thousands. Before he left, he told St. Louis Public Radio's Véronique LaCapra that this time he’s helping to lead a sustainable guano harvest.

MACEK: Guano is poop. Guano is basically bird feces. It sounds really gross. When you actually get there it’s not as gross as it sounds, I mean! The guano actually comes from a bird called a Guanay cormorant, and they nest by the millions in Punta San Juan.

And so through the years, through the centuries, the millennia, they have nested in these areas, and it builds up, and believe it or not it can be as thick as 10, 20 feet. Now as you’re approaching Punta San Juan, you smell Punta San Juan before you see it! It’s a very sort of ammonia kind of smell to it. Once you get there it kind of — you get used to it.

But the guano itself, because it’s such dry desert, it actually looks like clay. So you’re not walking on a bunch of bird poop, it looks like clay. But it’s very, very high in nitrogen, and it’s a very valued commodity for domestic use in Punta San Juan, for fertilizer.

So they still harvest it — they call them guaneros, the people who actually harvest the guano. But it used to be that they just went in there and they brought in trucks, and people digging, and they didn’t pay any attention to where the animals were. And there’s not just penguins there, there’s fur seals, and sea lions, and the cormorants, and Inca terns, and gannets, and all sorts of other birds and animals.

The last time they looked at this, in 1995, when it was not done sustainably, about one-tenth of the Peruvian penguin population was lost through the harvest.

LACAPRA: What is the major threat of harvesting guano, to penguins?

MACEK: Yeah, well so, these coastal areas are very rugged. Lot’s of rocks, sort of like the Northwest. And these birds burrow into the ground. Well, they can’t burrow into bedrock. So they actually burrow into the guano. That provides a substrate for them.
Well, if you remove all that — and they take it down to the bedrock — they’re on their hands and knees with little tools, just taking the very last bits off —

LACAPRA: The guaneros.
The guaneros are, yeah. So that basically leaves the penguins to lay their eggs on the rocks, and they become very vulnerable, and the survivability decreases dramatically. So that’s probably the greatest impact, is that it removes their substrate for nesting habitat.

LACAPRA: Tell me about the sustainable harvest, how does that work?

MACEK: Well, so the first sustainable harvest we had in 2001, and we had another one in 2007. So what we do, we bring a group of both American and European and Peruvian biologists down.
We do some education with the guaneros. The guaneros are not local people, they’re actually the Andean people that come from the Andes, and they traditionally have always come down to the coast to harvest the guano.

So we do a little — a number of presentations with them, telling them why this is important. We do mark off the area, so we basically delineate the areas that can be harvested, and the areas that should not be touched, and of course that’s where all the animals live. So they do not go beyond that.
And then we act as international observers, we basically just sort of have a presence with them, so if they know they’re being watched — and they’re very good about it actually, they’re very — at the end of the harvest all of the guaneros get a little diploma saying that they’ve participated in a sustainable guano harvest.

LACAPRA: OK, so I have to say, I having a little bit of a reaction like this is Americans and Europeans sort of parachuting in, and telling the Peruvians what to do. So how have you handled that, have you — what’s the reaction been, of local Peruvians?

MACEK: Well, everything is through collaboration. And I should say our original involvement in 2001 was by invitation. It was actually our Peruvian colleagues — primarily at the university, the Cayetano Heredia in Lima — it was actually them that invited us in, because they felt, having the presence of people from the outside would have a greater impact, knowing that other people were watching.

And of course the success would be walking away from all of that, and having it being taken over by Peruvian colleagues, and more and more, we have more Peruvian students working there. So this is probably the one project where we have the most sort of American and Europeans there. Generally, we’re just there to help.

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Image of the Day

Penguin, a photo by Amanda Jaynes - Loadsapetals Photography on Flickr.

Penguins get shark roommates at aquarium

These sharks are docile, well-mannered and like underwater caves, biologists say

Tim Wong, California Academy of Sciences

The California Academy of Sciences introduced a group of pyjama sharks to its popular African Penguin exhibit. The two species are natural neighbors off the coast of South Africa.

 

By Jeanna Bryner Managing Editor

8/1/2012 

A group of African penguins that live on an indoor beach in California greeted some toothy new neighbors this week: six striped pyjama sharks.

On Tuesday, aquarium biologists at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco introduced the nocturnal sharks (four females and two males) to their neighbors in nature, as both species live in the wild off the South African coast.  

The 2-year-old pyjama sharks, which the biologists say are docile and mild-mannered, are expected to spend much of their time in the exhibit's man-made underwater caves; since the two species rub shoulders in the wild, they should pose no threat to each other.

"During yesterday's event, the sharks were let into the tank two at a time, which piqued the interest of the penguins," biologists at the California Academy told LiveScience, collectively, in an email. "The penguins reacted with curiosity, some diving into the water to get a closer look at and feel for their new neighbors. Overall, the penguins reacted quite positively."

As for the sharks, they swam up to the tank's glass as if posing for photos, before retreating to their cave homes, the biologists added.
The African penguin exhibit is modeled after Boulders Beach in South Africa, where the penguins and sharks are found in the wild.

The sharks were born at an aquarium in Lisbon, Portugal, in July 2010 before being transported to the Steinhart Aquarium at the Academy a few months ago. So that biologists can monitor the sharks' feeding, they are using tactics to attract the typically nighttime bottom feeders to the surface for meal times.

When hatched, these sharks measure about 5.5 to 5.9 inches in length, growing to about 39 inches as adults. The Academy's newcomers were about 16 inches long when they arrived at the aquarium.
Their aquarium mates, African penguins (also called jackass penguins because the sounds they make resemble a donkey's bray) grow to about 23 to 25 inches tall and can weight 5 to 9 pounds.
A Web cam is set up in the exhibit that allows the public to watch the pudgy penguins and their new "roommates."

Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the sharks' birthdate. They were born in July 2010 and transported to the Aquarium several months ago. 

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Image of the Day

macaroni penguin, a photo by ricardo00 on Flickr.

Penguin fans take steps to help rebuild zoo enclosure

The penguins on parade

Published on Tuesday 31 July 2012 
 

DOZENS of people are set to leave their mark on a new penguin parade at Edinburgh Zoo, after buying “penguin footprints” to help raise thousands of pounds for a new enclosure.

The zoo’s Penguins Rock Appeal was launched three weeks ago and has already raised more than £22,000 of its £100,000 target, with several people purchasing special footprint dedications for loved ones.

Penguin fans can sponsor a penguin footprint on the parade route close to the pool, with their name and a special dedication featured on the brick.
The money raised will go towards the £750,000 cost of creating a new enclosure to house the Capital’s famous penguin colony.

Sponsorship manager at Edinburgh Zoo, Rebecca Whitley, said: “Penguins Rock Appeal has been a huge success so far and we have had a great response from our members and the public alike.
“It’s great to see how popular our penguins are with the public and we’re sure that we will be able to give them a great enclosure that will be home to these famous birds for years to come.
“We hope to have 100 sponsored bricks in place when the enclosure is completed, which would be great as 2013 is our centenary year, although, as they are proving popular, we might reach that target quickly.”

In March, the zoo’s popular penguin parade had to be suspended, and two-thirds of the birds were farmed out to other zoos, after leaks were found in their pool.
The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland launched a campaign earlier this month to raise funds for the new Penguins Rock enclosure, which will see water slides and a beach built for the penguins.
In his online blog, chief executive of Edinburgh Zoo, Professor Chris West, said: “Kind donations have been gratefully received from across Scotland and the UK.

“Many people have purchased special footprint dedications for loved ones that will line the penguin parade route once the new enclosure has been developed. I’ve been delighted to see how well loved the penguins are.”
Penguins Rock will feature a range of new features, including interactive elements and diving boards, as well 
as improved viewpoints for visitors.

Until its closure, the daily penguin parade was one of the most popular attractions at the zoo, which had the largest outdoor penguin pool in the world.
The parade began in 1951 when a keeper accidentally left the gate open. The penguins went for a short walk and then returned to their enclosure.

A daily penguin talk has been given at the zoo in the absence of the parade.
Following the discovery of the leak, the 160-bird colony had to be split up, with some being sent to Belfast, Denmark and England, although some stayed in the Capital. Then, it was said that 50 of the birds would never return.

As part of the new enclosure, there will also be a memorial plaque with names on a wall at the side of the enclosure 
showing all those who have supported the project.
Anyone willing to spend £250 can buy themselves a penguin footprint with their name on it.

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This Aquarium Is the Only Place On Earth Where Penguins Can Fly

Jul 31, 2012

Andrew Liszewski

 

The Sunshine Aquarium—located atop an entertainment complex in the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo—features a unique ring-shaped see-through tank perched seven-and-a-half feet over guests that usually lets them watch the facility's seal population swim laps.
But this summer the aquarium's added a special penguin exhibit, and every evening the birds are given exclusive access to the Aqua Ring which presumably gives them a small taste of what it might be like to fly. During their nightly excursion in the circular tank the seals are kept at bay given they're one of the penguin's natural predators. And because having an up-close view of what might happen should a penguin and seal meet might not be particularly enjoyable for the aquarium's younger guests.


[Sunshine Aquarium (Facebook) via RocketNews24]

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Image of the Day

Chinstrap Penguins, a photo by Veerle L on Flickr.