Wiinterrr's Day

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Meet the adorable little #penguins just born at Edinburgh Zoo

Thursday, May 07, 2015

Edinburgh Zoo is welcoming its first furry Gentoo penguins of the season, which were born this week.

The first chick made its arrival on Monday, with the second breaking out of his shell yesterday.
Another egg has already started to crack and is expected to hatch shortly, followed by the hatching of several other chicks over the next couple of weeks.

Edinburgh Zoo are over the moon about its new arrivals despite the hectic schedule the penguin breeding season brings.
“We are really happy that the first of the gentoo penguin eggs have hatched,” senior penguin keeper Dawn Nicoll said.
“Penguin breeding season is always a really busy time for us, right from the moment we put the nesting rings into the enclosure, through the incubation period, to the hatching, rearing and, eventually, the fledging of the chicks.

“It is always incredibly rewarding when the eggs start hatching and we finally get to see the penguin chicks.
“The majority of them will hatch over the next two to three weeks as the birds will not all lay at exactly the same time. Fingers crossed we will have quite a few chicks keeping us busy this season.”

The breeding season at Penguins Rock kicked off in March as the penguins all began to squabble and flipper-slap each other as they competed for the best breeding grounds.
The first eggs were laid at the beginning in April just in time for Easter and the birds have now produced 40 eggs so far.

Edinburgh Zoo eggstatic as the first gentoo eggs have started to hatch!

via Instagram

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Baby penguin hatches at Dallas Zoo

WFAA

May 5, 2015

DALLAS -- The Dallas Zoo has welcomed another baby to its family - and this time it's a penguin!
The baby bird hatched April 15, the zoo said on its Facebook page Tuesday. The African black-footed penguin was born to parents Tulip and Tazo.

"This is a major success for our bird team, who are all over the moon right now," the zoo wrote. "The little one won't start swimming lessons for a few months. So the chick will remain off habitat, staying close to mom and dad, until it can learn to take a dip."

The zoo says the new baby is about 2.5 pounds -- much larger than its initial weight after hatching, which was a little more than a C battery.

source

Birdland wants your votes to name its new King Penguin

Head-Keeper-Alistair-Keen-

Wildlife park, Birdland has announced the birth of its own royal baby - a King Penguin chick.
The youngster, which was born at the park at Bourton-on-the-Water in September, was old enough to be sexed and the team at Birdland are thrilled to have another female in their colony.

The chick is the first female King Penguin to be born at the park and the first King Penguin chick to hatch in more than seven years.

Now the final thing to do is find a name for the precious bird. Four names have been suggested, including Charlotte, after her potential royal namesake, but the park wants you to vote on it.

Her brother Spike was also hand-reared by Head Keeper Alistair Keen and both chicks regard him as their surrogate Dad.

King penguin babies are very rare with Birdland having the only breeding colony of King Penguins in the UK making this little chick very special.

Head Keeper Alistair Keen says: "I am really pleased that she is a girl. Other than a healthy chick, that is exactly what we wanted. The King Penguin colony is quite top heavy on males so another female is great for the future of the group.

He continues: "We have four possible names for her, and are going to ask our Birdland Facebook followers to vote for their favourite."

Like the rest of the nation who have been waiting for a Royal Baby, keepers also played the waiting game. In order to sex the penguin chick, keepers had to wait until she was about seven months old. During a routine vet visit they sent feathers off for DNA analysis to confirm the sex, and the results took about two weeks to return.

The penguin chick is still brown and fluffy so the Birdland team are keeping a close eye on her, watching for signs of adult feathers. The next major milestone in her life will be her first swim.
Visitors can meet the King Penguin Chick as well as her extended family of King Penguins and Humboldts at Penguin Shore, Birdland. Learn more about penguins during the twice-daily penguin feeds and talks hosted by Birdland's expert Keepers at 11am and 2.30pm.

For more: www.birdland.co.uk

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#Penguin of the Day

IMG_0215_flck penguin head Marwell May-15 R Tuffin

Humboldt Penguin by rtmotorphotos

Monday, May 4, 2015

#Penguins of the Day

Magellanic penguins / Magellan-Pinguine (Spheniscus magellanicus) - Monte León National Park, Patagonia, Argentina by Andrea Schieber

First king penguin chick to hatch in the Middle East dies

Megha Merani | May 4, 2015

The first king penguin chick to hatch in the Middle East has died. The chick was nine-and-a-half-weeks old when it passed away on Saturday, April 25 about 11pm at Ski Dubai’s penguin habitat.

Tom Scheffer, general manager of Ski Dubai, told 7DAYS: “The staff on duty discovered the baby penguin lying down with stiff hind legs, which they felt was unusual behaviour.”

“After checking for vital signs, they immediately contacted our Ski Dubai veterinary surgeon, as well as the head trainer, and tried basic resuscitation, which is notoriously challenging to give on a penguin. Unfortunately the penguin quickly deteriorated and died shortly after.”

The cause of death is not yet known. But Scheffer said further tests are being conducted to learn more about what happened as part of Ski Dubai’s ongoing multi-generation breeding programme.

The baby hatched on February 17 to six-year-old mother Bubbles and father Wall-E, who is four. This was their first chick.

The parents had taken turns incubating the egg inside the penguin habitat and both fed the chick after it was born. “Both Wall-E and Bubbles were there when the baby passed,” Scheffer said. “They showed no obvious reaction and as it was late at night, the lights went out shortly afterwards. The reaction from Bubbles and Wall-E has been positive in that they are both displaying their normal behaviours and aren’t showing any signs of distress.” The baby did not have a name and its gender had not yet been determined.

Scheffer said the facility was planning to host a ‘naming competition’ but the name had not been chosen. The manager said the Ski Dubai team is devastated but added the birth of the chick could still be considered a success. “As this was our first, we felt a mixture of both pride and accomplishment. Every day of its short life was special to us. The whole penguin team were also ‘parents’ and our sense of loss cannot be described.”

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#Penguins striving for survival

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/FILE African black-footed penguins are among the Pueblo Zoo's most popular attractions.

By ABBIE KRAUSE

Published: May 3, 2015

Once upon a time, there was an African black-footed penguin named Tess that lived at the Pueblo Zoo.

Many Puebloans knew that Tess was a very special penguin, for at the time of her death, she was 40 years (and 8 months) old, making her the oldest known living African black-footed penguin in captivity and the oldest female on record. In the wild, the average life expectancy of African penguins is 15-20 years.

Tess was very well adjusted to her surroundings and colony and received excellent care, which may have contributed to her exceptionally long life. Perhaps more importantly, Tess and the zoo’s entire penguin colony are great ambassadors for their species, giving guests a chance to connect with these amazing birds and learn more about their wild counterparts.

However, the future of the African black-footed penguin population is not looking like a fairy tale with a happy ending. Native to waters along the southern African coastline, the penguins are classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and is threatened by a number of factors, including overfishing of food sources, shifts in the fish-rich currents they rely on, habitat destruction and commercial oil spills and dumping.

Many of the penguins’ food sources, such as anchovies, are severely depleted through overfishing, shifting travel patterns or oil spills. The distance they need to swim to find fish, as well as severe competition and threat from predators such as Cape fur seals and sharks, present great challenges to the penguins’ feeding and breeding. The population has also been undermined by people hunting penguin eggs and collecting guano — needed for nest sites — for use as fertilizer. An oil spill in 2000 threatened 40 percent of the wild population.

During the last decade, the African penguin population has declined by nearly 60 percent; the current estimated population is a mere 10 percent of what it was 100 years ago. With this sharp decline, the penguins are expected to be extinct in the wild within 20 years.

One glimmer of hope is that Association of Zoos and Aquarium institutions, like the Pueblo Zoo, have helped to create a broad genetic base for the penguins in captivity, with the capacity to maintain genetic diversity for the next 100 years. So, reintroduction in the wild may be a possibility at some point in the future, if needed.

This month, the zoo is set to launch its Quarters for Conservation program to raise awareness about the importance of conservation efforts in the wild and encourage the public to join in to make a difference. The zoo plans to honor Tess through supporting the conservation efforts of the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB).

Visitors can learn more at two zoo events: Endangered Species Day on May 15 and Penguin Day on May 25.

For more information about Tess’s story and events, go to pueblozoo.org. For more on penguin conservation, go to sanccob.co.za.

source

Yellow-eyed penguin visits Caroline Bay, NZ

NATASHA THYNE

A yellow-eyed penguin, with a flipper tag, made a rare visit to Caroline Bay on Monday. Grant Shimmin/Fairfax NZ

A yellow-eyed penguin made a rare visit to Caroline Bay but disappeared before Department of Conservation rangers arrived.
The penguin was spotted at the Marine Parade end of Caroline Bay on Monday morning and stayed at the beach until noon.

DOC was alerted, however when rangers arrived shortly after 1pm, there was no sign of the penguin, which witnesses had spotted heading back into the sea an hour earlier.
Ranger Kevin Pearce said the penguin could have been underweight or injured, but it was not uncommon for them to pull out onto the beach to rest up.

The best thing to do if a penguin was spotted was to call the DOC hotline, Pearce said. "If you can, stay with them until the rangers turn up. If you can't, be location-specific."
If the penguin was there, Pearce said they would remove it from the area and release it somewhere there were no dogs.

Now that dogs are allowed at the bay, Timaru's Penguin Support Group has placed information notices around the penguin area.
Member Greg Adams said dogs harming penguins was not generally a problem at this time of year as most penguins had "flown the coop".

Most people were respectful, but there were one or two who weren't, he said.
"Some of them see it as their spot. Most people are respectful."
Penguins were also "astute" animals and ducked into the rocks when they felt unsafe, Adams said.
The yellow-eyed penguin is not a common penguin in this area, with numerous little blue penguins nesting at Caroline Bay.

DOC biodiversity ranger Steve Harroway said although numbers weren't huge, they did receive calls about yellow-eyed penguins each year along the coast, including at Caroline Bay.
The penguin which was spotted at Caroline Bay had a tag, but DOC could not say where it originally came from.

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