Wiinterrr's Day

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

#Penguins removed from aquarium because the ice is too slippy

Some might assume penguins are used to slippery conditions, but maintenance work at The Deep, in Hull, left the birds flat on their faces

A Gentoo penguin at The Deep, in Hull Photo: The Deep/PA

By Press Association

03 Feb 2015

A group of penguins has been temporarily removed from an aquarium exhibit because the fake ice flooring was too slippery. Staff at The Deep, in Hull, have now used a special anti-slip covering so the seven Gentoo penguins do not fall over. The birds were removed from public display after ''skidding'' on the new icy surface.

A spokeswoman for The Deep said: ''The penguins were taken out of the display on 6 January to do some routine maintenance work but, when we put them back, the covering did not have enough grip in it for them to stick on to and we had a bit of a skidding situation. ''They were literally in there for 10 minutes and then they were taken out again straight away.''

Andrew McLeod, deputy curator at the aquarium, said the penguins were ''excited'' about being back in the display after repairs were carried out to the enclosure.

Mr McLeod said: ''We watched them hop around and saw them scrabbling a little bit on the slopes. As they turned quickly, they do this thing where they lean forward and one of them ended up face down, he ended up on his front. ''Some of the other birds were scrabbling and slipping over and we thought, 'it's far too slippy'. We've put some more grip down into the paint and they should be a lot happier.''

Gentoos are the fastest swimming species of penguin - reaching speeds of 36kmph - and can dive to depths of 170 metres. They can grow up to 80cms in height.

This colony went on display at The Deep in March last year after being born and raised at an educational facility in Texas. They were rehomed in Hull in a £750,000 exhibition called Kingdom of Ice - which spans three floors and includes a swimming pool, diving pool, beach area, nesting area and outdoor balcony.

The penguins will be returned to their enclosure by February 9.

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Rosamond Gifford Zoo welcomes new baby Humboldt penguin

by Brandon Roth

Posted: 02.04.2015

SYRACUSE -- There is a new member of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo family.
One of the three baby Humboldt penguins born a few weeks ago was introduced for the first time Wednesday.
County Executive Joanie Mahoney had the honor of naming one of the baby penguins.
“I know that the first one that was born is a little girl. I have been given the honor of picking her name and I have picked the name ‘Lucia’,” Mahoney said. “Lucia” means “light.”

The zoo plans to hold a contest to name the two remaining baby penguins. Zoo director Ted Fox says previous contests to name new born penguins at the zoo have been a big hit with the public.
“We've gotten hundreds of names from school groups to individuals to people in Argentina and Australia and Europe. It’s always just a fun contest,” Fox says.
There are 35 Humboldt penguins at the Rosemond Gifford Zoo, but their numbers are declining in the wild. The zoo hopes in some small way the three baby penguins born here will help increase their numbers.
“Our original colony back in 2005 when we opened penguin cove was 19 birds that came from all different zoos across the country and we've had a successful breeding program. Since than we've raised 43 chicks here,” Fox says.
Little Lucia will be the 44 penguin chick raised at the zoo and as any SU fan will tell you, 44 is a good number to have in this town.

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New gentoo #penguins arrive at Detroit Zoo

Jennifer Chambers, The Detroit News

February 4, 2015

Three gentoo penguins arrived at the Detroit Zoo this week, part of a build up of the penguin population at the Zoo as construction continues on its $29.5 million Polk Penguin Conservation Center.

Philly, Popeye and Simon — each just over a year old — are the first of their species to arrive at the zoo, officials said on Wednesday.

To pick them out from the crowd of king, rockhopper and macaroni penguins at the zoo's current Penguinarium, look for the white stripe extending across its head, a bright red-orange bill and a long tail.

More gentoos — the same type of penguins in the 2011 film Mr. Popper's Penguins — will arrive in the coming months as completion of new penguin home nears, zoo officials said.

The gentoo is the third-largest penguin, reaching a height of 30 inches and a weight of up to 20 pounds. It is also the fastest-diving bird, with paddle-shaped flippers that help it reach speeds of up to 22 miles an hour under water.

The penguins' new home will be a chilled 326,000-gallon, 25-foot-deep aquatic area with views above and below water as the birds dive and soar. Zoo officials said this will allow visitors to observe penguins dive under water — something that is impossible to see in the wild. "We have observed thousands of gentoo penguins in Antarctica as part of our research and development of the Polk Penguin Conservation Center's unique design. The aquatic habitat makes the facility an ideal environment for gentoos, which we know spend a lot of time in the water," said Scott Carter, Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) chief life sciences officer.

The Polk Penguin Conservation Center is under construction on a 2-acre site just inside the Zoo's entrance and is slated to open in early 2016. Once the penguins move to the PPCC, renovation will begin on the Penguinarium to turn it into a bat conservation center.

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Tuesday, February 3, 2015

#Penguin of the Day

African Penguin by WhatsThePointSA

Vic twin #penguins' sibling rivalry

Siblings often nab food off each other and fairy penguin twins at Melbourne Zoo are no exception.

Keepers had to separate the two chicks, hatched within a day of each other, after their rivalry over dinner left one plump and the other significantly underweight.

The smaller penguin is now in a humidicrib being hand-fed pilchard fillets four times a day.

Its gutsier sibling will be moved to a feeding school on Wednesday, where it will adjust to being fed by keepers instead of its parents, in preparation for joining the adults.

The twins are among nine fairy penguin chicks born at the zoo this breeding season.

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#Penguins injured by barracuda attack

WILMA MCKAY

February 3 2015

Wilma McKay/ Fairfax NZ

Wellington Zoo vet Lisa Argilla with the body of a rare yellow eyed penguin that died on an Otago beach this week.

Endangered yellow-eyed penguins have been attacked by barracuda off the Otago coast, a vet says.
Wildlife veterinarian Lisa Argilla, working at a vet surgery in Dunedin during conservation leave from Wellington Zoo, has euthanised three of the injured birds in as many weeks. She has dealt with nine of the birds recently, spending hours patching them up.

The adult birds were particularly important to the survival of the species. "As chicks they have a low survival rate even after they fledge [and go out to sea to feed for the first time]. About 81 per cent of them never come back. They die at sea. Having got through that juvenile stage and survived and then started breeding, the adults need as much focused on them as possible."

Five of the birds had made it through surgery and are recovering at a rehabilitation centre at Penguin Place on Otago Peninsula, Argilla said. Two others had been sent to Massey University zoological centre Wildbase for further treatment. A bite injury left untreated would become infected and eventually fatal for the penguin.

The most recent patient and two others were euthanised because of severe injuries, Argilla said. "It's been pretty tragic to lose a few adults this year. This dude we've had to euthanize too. It's pretty sad."
Late summer is the time of year adult yellow-eyeds are foraging for food to feed their growing chicks.

The chicks will venture out of their nests and into the ocean on their own for the first time next month. Argilla said it was a good time of the year to carry out health checks on the birds. It was when they often need vet attention. "This is the first time they have needed this much veterinarian attention," she said."I haven't had to do surgery on all of them. But we've done surgery on six or seven birds now."

Yellow-eyeds, only found in southern New Zealand and further south, were the most endangered penguin species in the world, she said. "There are probably less than 5000 of them left. So many things are going against them now so they're really just struggling. So, anything we can do to help them..."

Argilla was grateful to St Kilda Vet partner Tony Malthus, who carried out considerable wildlife work in the region, for allowing Argilla to "commandeer" his surgery during her time in Otago.

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Monday, February 2, 2015

Audubon Aquarium and the fight to save the endangered black-footed #penguin

By Robert McClendon, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on February 02, 2015

Ron Forman, president and chief executive of the Audubon Institute, speaks at a July 29, 2015, meeting of the Audubon Commission. (Photo by Robert McClendon, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

Marina, a rare black-footed penguin, squirmed as Darwin Long tried to explain how Audubon Aquarium of the Americas is trying to save her species.

Long, senior aviculturist at the aquarium, raised Marina from a hatchling, and she's an "ambassador penguin," one of the animals Long uses in educational talks to aquarium patrons. She is used to being handled and dealing with humans, but she had just finished making introductions and posing for pictures with the Audubon Commission when a reporter asked to interview Long about the penguin breeding program.

Everyone has their limits, even an ambassador penguin.

Marina is the product of the aquarium's breeding program, which aims to preserve the species' genetic stock in the event that it goes extinct and needs to be re-introduced into their native habitat, the islands and coastline of Africa's southern tip.

Over the last century, the black-footed penguin population has declined 99.5 percent, Long said, leaving a wild community of fewer than 50,000.

The species has been under tremendous pressure from environmental degradation, he said. Oil spills and guano mining, the removal of hardened bird-poop that the penguins use to build nests, have contributed to the species decline, but the primary driver is the collapse of the cape anchovy.

Overfishing has decimated the penguins' primary food source, causing a decline in breeding, Long said. "When you are an African penguin trying to get enough fish to feed yourself and your partner and your two chicks, and 80 percent of your food source disappears, something has to give," he said.
The species could be extinct within two decades, Long said.

Until the fishery recovers, there is little point in reintroducing penguins to the wild, where they would either starve or fail to propagate, Long said.

That's where the captive breeding program comes in.

Audubon is a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and participates in the organization's Species Survival Plan.

Audubon and other participating aquariums keep extensive pedigrees on their penguins. The Survival Plan program gathers that data and acts as a "Match.com" for penguins, Long said, paring penguins with varied heredity to ensure that the genetic stock of the captive population remains robust.

For now, the captive population should be able to propagate itself safely without danger of inbreeding for about 200 years, Long said.

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An employee of the Aquarium of the Americas holds a black-footed penguine, a critically endangered species native to Africa's southern coast. (Photo by Robert McClendon, NOLA.com | The Times Picayune)

Darwin Long, an employee at the Aquarium of the Americas, holds a rare black-footed penguin at a meeting of teh Audubon Commission Jan 29, 2015. (Photo by Robert McClendon, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

#Penguin of the Day

Baby Humboldt Penguin, Cotswold Wildlife Park by Gaz Hinchliffe

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Watch the moment terrified baby #penguin learns to swim for very first time

30 January 2015
By Kara O'Neill

The cute animal was clearly scared stiff after being introduced to the water by keepers at a zoo in Russia

This amazing video captures the moment a baby penguin was taught to swim.

Super-cute Chudi had staff at the zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, worried when he didn't fancy following his penguin family and pals into the water.

So after sealing him off from the rest of the penguins, two keepers became swimming instructors to teach the three-month old how to swim.

Although initially terrified, when he was finally thrown in at the deep end he seemed to enjoy himself.

And while his swimming style leaves something to be desired, he decided not to swim straight back to shore and splashed around before finally tiring and aiming for the safety of the nearby rocks.
The penguin chick, hatched in an incubator at Royev Ruchey Zoo, is from the only species that lives in Africa and is therefore more suited to hot weather.

He and his relatives will spend the winter cooped up in a heated room.

At the time of his birth, Chudi was hailed a sensation as it was the first time an African penguin threatened with extinction had been born in a Russian zoo.

A zoo spokesman said: "At first he couldn't do anything for himself, not even lift his head and his eyes were shut. We had to keep him in a special heated chamber so he could build up his strength and growth while feeding him on minced fish."

African penguins are monogamous birds that mate for life.

In summer Chudi's parents Marfa and Lenya built nest in an outdoor enclosure, laying an egg that was put in an incubator to protect it from the cold.

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The Penguin Counters, a documentary

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -

The Penguin Counters is documentary film that follows an adventurous team of field biologists on a journey to the Antarctic, where they track remote penguin populations to monitor the impact of climate change.
Is it possible that perhaps these little cute birds hold the key to human survival?

I sent The Penguin Counters Filmmakers Peter Getzels & Harriet Gordon Getzels a few questions their way about the project.

How did this film come to be? Can you talk about that process?

The Antarctic has been this magical place and as a climber, for as long as I can remember, I’d been dreaming about getting into this pristine world. Ernest Shackleton had been my hero. The opportunity to go to the Antarctic arose when we moved to Washington DC from the UK where we’d been making films for British television for many years. For the first few months we stayed with a cousin we barely knew. I had no idea her husband, Ron Naveen, counted penguins for a living.
Right from the start we talked about making a film about Ron’s work, and it seemed like a slam-dunk. We wanted this to be an independent production. But that meant we had to wait until the time was right; and it took a number of years for Ron to have a a bit of extra funding and accommodation to help get us there. This was a real ‘grab the cameras and go’ kind of project. We shot 72 hours of material. Once we saw what the story arc would be, we launched a Kickstarter campaign, which turned out to be more successful than we expected. From there, the Pew Charitable Trusts came on board. Like Ron, they see penguins as the canaries in the coalmine for global climate change.

Name a few interesting facts you discovered about Penguin Counters that you didn’t know before?

Ron Naveen – chief penguin counter extraordinaire – is the most penguin-centric person we know. His team are field-biologists who work in a much wider range of environments on all kinds of projects. But none of them are bonafide adventurers or explorers, kitted out in the latest gear. They’re doing a job which requires long periods of time away from home, immersed in an extreme geographical world, and they do their work in a thoroughly dedicated way. They’re not formally trained for the conditions they encounter, but they seem to take it in stride. We still can’t figure out how anyone can count single units by the tens of thousands, but penguin counters don’t seem to have any difficulty with this.

What was the hardest thing you and your film crew had to endure while shooting this documentary?

The bleak, grey, cold of Deception Island. Hurricane-force winds in the Drake Passage. Winds so punishing they knocked us down and blew the cameras out of our hands.

What was your favorite part of this entire journey?

Just being there; the idea that we had finally made it to the Antarctic was pinch-worthy on a daily basis.

The film’s musical score is amazing. Can you please talk about how you decided Robert Neufeld was going to be the musical composer for The Penguin Counters?

As a film about a perilous journey, filled with mood and atmosphere, we knew we had to have an original music score. Our editor laid in scratch tracks from one of Hollywood’s best composers, Thomas Newman. It worked incredibly well, but we’d never have been able to afford the rights – if they were even available. So the bar was set very high. Robert Neufeld – who was a musical prodigy as a child and has since gone on to have a great career in film composition – was a friend and colleague at the National Film and Television School of England.
We spent a lot of time talking to Robert about the story we were trying to tell, and the ranges of mood and drama set against the living, breathing, deadly world that characterizes the Antarctic. As a climber and nature photographer, Robert also has an innate understanding of the power of the wilderness; and an extremely poetic soul. He did an amazing job; and really appreciated our commitment to keeping the film independent.

If you could go back in time, is there one thing you would do differently to this film?

There’s always things one wishes had been different but the challenge in film is to work with what we have. More then any other verité film we’ve made, this was filmed in a virtual bell jar. Spending an even longer time in the Antarctic would be the top of the list.

The Penguin Counters premieres at the 30th Santa Barbara International Film Festival February 1st at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. A second screening is scheduled for the following day. For times CLICK HERE.

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