Let's talk about gay penguins: Munich zoo joins Pride week

JULY 13, 2019

by Pauline Curtet

Biologists say giraffes are bisexual. In some groups, 90 percent of the acts observed are in fact homosexual in nature

Organisers of this year's Gay Pride week in Munich have a group of rather wild partners—penguins, giraffes and lions at the city zoo where tours are being run about same-sex love in the animal kingdom.

The Munich zoo has joined Pride week with an unusual look into the intimate lives of all creatures great and small, seeking to boost tolerance among humans.

"It is important for us to talk about" homosexuality in the animal kingdom and show that same-sex love has its place in Nature, said Munich zoo spokesman Dennis Spaeth.

"Because unfortunately in Germany we see more and more people from the reactionary right attacking LGBTQI rights."

While even mostly-Catholic Bavaria has grown more accepting and lawmakers legalised gay marriage in 2017, non-heterosexuals are sometimes still a target for violence.

Police recorded 91 attacks based on the victim's sexual orientation last year.

In the safe confines of the zoo, the first stop on the Pride tour is the giraffes. The blotchy animals spare visitors only occasional curious glances from behind their long eyelashes as they enjoy a meal of hay.

"Giraffes are bisexual. In some groups, 90 percent of the acts observed are in fact homosexual in nature," explained biologist Guenter Strauss.

The Munich zoo has joined Pride week with an unusual look into the intimate lives of all creatures great and small, seeking to boost tolerance among humans

A few enclosures down, there is little to distinguish a male-male couple of black-faced Humboldt penguins squatting together from other, mixed pairs.

That is until the guide points out that with no egg to care for, the pair has taken to brooding a rock instead.

This is no one-off fling, as "penguins conduct homosexual relationships that can last a whole lifetime, something very rare in the animal kingdom," said Strauss.

Continued

Exmoor Zoo staff left heartbroken after all 10 penguins die

By North Devon Journal | Posted: September 26, 2016 

Exmoor Zoo staff have been left heartbroken after all its penguins died.

The zoo reported today that all 10 of the birds had died from a quick and devastating outbreak of avian malaria.

There have been penguins at the zoo, near Bratton Fleming, since it opened in 1982, and some of the birds that died today are children of the original birds.

Danny Reynolds, living collection manager at the zoo, said that despite the best efforts of vets and staff – some of whom had hand-reared the birds from birth – the outbreak could not be halted.

He added: "Exmoor Zoo has always had penguins on display and we are very carefully considering whether we should try and exhibit them again."

Read more at

Seals discovered having sex with penguins

Things are heating up in the cold climes of the sub-Antarctic. On a remote, and mostly desolate island, seals have been caught engaging in an extreme form of sexual behaviour.

Specifically, they have been trying to have sex with penguins.

More than one fur seal has been caught in the act, on more than one occasion.

And it's all been captured on film, with details being published inthe journal Polar Biology.

Perhaps it is a release of sexual frustration

The sexual behaviour of the fur seals hasn't come as a complete shock to the scientists that recorded it.

Continued ...

‘Giant penguins the size of people used to stalk the earth 37 million years ago’

Imagine a world where giant penguins the size of people strut around gobbling up fish.

Pingu and Mumble from Happy Feet would have a blast.

Well, it turns out this isn’t as unrealistic as you might think because colossal penguins once stalked a small island near Antarctica.

Newly unearthed fossils show that a species of penguin called Palaeeudyptes Klekowskii measuring 6ft 6ins high and weighing around 18 stone (115 kilos) existed around 37 to 40 million years ago.

The beast probably would have been able to dive deeper and hold its breath for 40 minutes, giving it more time to hunt.

And they may have even lived in harmony with 10 to 14 other species of penguin on the island of Seymour off the Antarctic Peninsula, which had a much warmer climate at the time.

Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche from the La Plata Museum in Argentina discovered a wing bone of the giant penguin and a record 9.1 centimetre long tarsometatarsus, which is formed by the fusion of ankle and foot bones.

This tarsometatarsus suggested the size of the penguin would have been around 6ft 6ins (2.01 metres) long from beak tip to toes.

Continued

On The Front Lines Of Climate Change, Antarctica's Scientists And Penguins Fight For World's Attention (PHOTOS)

Last November, New Zealand outdoorsman Michael Armstrong was watching a cricket match in his local pub when he thought of penguins. A friend had told him about a program that was sending an explorer-in-training to Antarctica to study the effects of climate change, and the application was due in a few hours.

"I thought about this sort of angle where I could talk about the penguins being dressed in tuxedos and Antarctica being their ballroom, but their ballroom was under threat because of global warming and climate change," he recently told The Huffington Post.

The pitch Armstrong made and that of student filmmaker Marli Lopez-Hope were selected from 2,000 applications to participate in Air New Zealand's "No Ordinary Place, No Ordinary Assignment" program. The goal was to highlight the growing peril Earth is facing even in one of its harshest environments.

The pair went to Antarctica with National Geographic photographer Jason Edwards. Together, they spent two weeks in January living atNew Zealand's Scott Base, including three days sleeping on the Ross Ice Shelf among 40,000 breeding pairs of the Adelie penguins. Armstrong and Lopez-Hope assisted with ongoing research projects, including drilling for ice samples, tagging penguins and mapping the ice shelf.

Continued and photos

Gigantic penguins lived in prehistoric Antarctica

Prehistoric penguins, standing two metres or six and a half feet tall, would dwarf most men today — almost twice as tall as their modern counterparts at 3ft 11 inches.

Such a gigantic penguin waddled across the southern hemisphere millions of years ago, say Argentine experts, who discovered the fossils of a two metre tall penguin that lived in prehistoric Antarctica 34 million years ago.

Paleontologists with the Natural Sciences Museum of La Plata province, near the capital Buenos Aires, Argentina, said the remains were found on the icy southern continent.

“This is the largest penguin known to date in terms of height and body mass,” said researcher Carolina Acosta, the Daily Mail reports.

Marcelo Reguero who led the study added that the find will “allow for a more intensive and complex study of the ancestors of modern penguins”.

The previous record for the tallest prehistoric penguins had been held by a five foot tall bird discovered in Peru two years ago and nicknamed the Water King.

The Water King, which lived more than 36 million years ago, was found by a Peruvian student in the Paracas Reserve on Peru’s eastern coastline.

http://www.phenomenica.com/2012/11/gigantic-penguins-lived-in-prehistoric-antarctica.html 

Deaths of hundreds of penguins baffles Brazilian scientists

The discovery of over 500 dead penguins has scientists puzzled in the Brazilian state of Rio do Sul. Preliminary examination of the bodies showed they bore no injuries or oil stains and were well-fed.

The 512 penguins were found between the towns of Tramandai and Cidreira by residents of the area, who then notified the environmental patrol.

Investigators from the Brazilian Center of Martine Studies (Ceclimar) have taken a sample of 30 of the birds to try and ascertain the cause of death. The results of their study will be available in a month’s time.

Magellenic penguins breed in large colonies at the very tip of the Latin American continent in the South of Chile and Argentina. Between the months of March and September the birds migrate north in search of food.

Reports of penguin deaths on Brazil’s coasts are not uncommon, many animals dying of starvation or exhaustion during their migration. However, the scale of this incident and the fact that the birds seemed to be in good physical condition has set this case apart.

A Ceclimar official told Brazilian news agency Globo the deaths of these animals was “normal” at this time of year in Brazil given their mass migration. However, the “number of animals found dead in such a small area was cause for concern.” 

“They showed no signs of exhaustion and were most likely well-fed, so a more in-depth investigation is needed to determine the cause of death,” the official told Globo.

http://www.rt.com/news/dead-penguins-found-brazil-191/

Dog kills 27 penguins in Australia

Little penguins killed in Australia

May 2012. The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) is investigating the death of 27 Little Penguins and two Water Rats at the Phillip Island Nature Park.  The Little Penguins were found at Cat Bay, Shelly Beach and the Penguin Parade Car Park.

DSE Wildlife Officers are investigating the cause of death however preliminary observations of the injuries are consistent with a dog attack.

Little Penguins and Water Rats are protected in Victoria. 

If a dog attacks wildlife on public land, the owner could face fines of up to $3000 under the Wildlife Act 1975.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/dog-penguins.html

Secret Lives of Penguins Revealed by 'Hidden' Cameras

Thanks to 16 'hidden' cameras planted around Antarctica, researchers have captured images of penguin colonies going about their business during the frozen continent's harsh winter months — rare images indeed, since the brutal conditions makes it impossible for humans to work there in the winter.

Researchers from the Zoological Society of London set up time-lapse cameras on the continent and on sub-Antarctic South Georgia Island to capture aspects of the penguin life cycle that typically go unseen.

The camera traps, weighted down with rocks, were placed in a variety of positions overlooking penguin colonies in Antarctica. They spied gentoo penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula, and kept watch on king penguins on South Georgia Island.

Snow buried the camera staking out the gentoo penguins for part of the winter, but the hardy camera kept on filming.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/20123-penguin-hidden-cameras.html

Stressed-out penguins on the mend

Penguins which had to be given anti-depressants after a break-in left them stressed have made a full recovery.

A trespasser broke into their enclosure at Scarborough's Sea Life Centre one year ago and chased the birds.

Staff at the centre said the birds had been left "frightened" and needed medication, reports the BBC.

The birds have now recovered and two couples have even produced eggs which are due to hatch later this year, curators said.

Lyndsey Crawford, displays curator, said: "Penguins only lay eggs when they feel happy enough to do so.

"This is a really good sign particularly as this is the first time for each couple."

Penguins are particularly vulnerable to any change of routine which was why the incident last year had proved so upsetting for them, she explained.

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Stressed-out_penguins_on_the_mend

Hidden cameras record ‘The Secret Lives of Penguins’

A year in the life of Antarctic penguins caught on camera

April 2012. Sixteen "hidden" cameras planted by scientists have survived some of the planet's harshest winter conditions to capture the annual activities of penguin colonies in Antarctica.

Researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) journeyed over 9,000 miles south to set up 16 cameras around Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic Island of South Georgia. Penguin research normally takes place in the summer, when scientists can get to the colonies, but they often miss the start of breeding. Now, time-lapse cameras have allowed researchers to record parts of the penguin life cycle which normally go unseen, when humans are not there.

Gentoo & King penguins
The footage captured gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) at Brown Bluff on the Antarctic Peninsula and King penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) huddling over winter at Salisbury Plain on South Georgia. The camera at Brown Bluff was covered by a snow drift for part of the winter, but continued to take photos throughout.

ZSL researcher Dr. Ben Collen says: "Antarctica is one of the world's least explored regions, making it all the more important for us to collect worthwhile data on wildlife. New information is vital for making informed conservation decisions, so we are able to best manage species under pressure and deal with the wider global implications of climate change".

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/penguin-antarctic.html

Antarctic warming changing penguin breeding cycles, and success

Gentoo happier than Adelie & Chinstrap

March 2012. Three penguin species that share the Western Antarctic Peninsula for breeding grounds have been affected in different ways by the higher temperatures brought on by global warming, according to Stony Brook University Ecology and Evolution Assistant Professor Heather Lynch and colleagues.

Lynch and her colleagues used a combination of field work and, increasingly, satellite imagery to track colonies of three penguin species - Adélie, chinstrap and gentoo. The Adélie and chinstrap migrate to the peninsula to breed, while the gentoo are year-round residents.

Rapid warming 
The Antarctic is considered one of the world's most rapidly warming regions. Warmer temperatures move up the breeding cycle, causing the penguins to lay their eggs earlier. The resident gentoo population is able to adapt more quickly and advance their "clutch initiation" by almost twice as much as the other species. Lynch believes this may allow them to better compete for the best nesting space. The Adélie and chinstrap are unaware of the local conditions until they arrive to breed and have not been able to advance their breeding cycles as rapidly.

Gentoo numbers booming, Chinstrap and Adelie declining
In addition, the gentoo prefer areas with less sea ice, and have been able to migrate further south into the Antarctic as the sea ice shrinks. The chinstrap and Adélie species rely more heavily on the abundance of Antarctic krill, which require sea ice for their lifecycle.

The result - the gentoo numbers are increasing while the other two species have noticeably dwindling populations on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The work by Lynch and her team is contained in three papers that have been published online in Polar Biology, Ecology and Marine Ecology Progress Series (MEPS).

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/gentoo-chinstrap.html

Penguins move to a new home in Edinburgh Zoo

Animal transportation can be a tricky business. Keepers at Edinburgh Zoo have had to literally pick up a penguin.

About 29 Gentoo penguins have been moved while their pool is being refurbished.

Watch video here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-17473753

Penguins return to wild after NZ oil spill rescue

The birds released Nov. 22 are among 343 little blue penguins that have been cleaned of oil since a cargo ship ran aground on a reef near Tauranga on Oct. 5 and spilled some 400 tons of fuel oil.

Three little blue penguins stand by a water pool during a cleaning session to get rid of fuel oil from their bodies at the wildlife facility in Tauranga, New Zealand, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011. The penguins were rescued from the sea polluted by oil leaked from the Liberia-flagged container ship Rena that has already spilled hundreds of tons of oil since it ran aground Oct. 5 on Astrolabe Reef, 14 miles (22 kilometers) from Tauranga Harbour on New Zealand's North Island. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Read more here ...

How to clean an oil-slicked penguin

Biologist Jeremy Gray is among those volunteering at the Oiled Wildlife Response Centre in Tauranga, New Zealand, after the Rena oil spill. He explains how to clean rescued wildlife.

I got put on the wildlife team as I am a biologist in real life. I'm "nurse" to the vets here - handing them equipment, cleaning stuff and such like - while they wash the birds. On Wednesday there were four vets and two nurses, and hopefully more tomorrow.

The response centre has been set up at a wastewater treatment plant that can handle up to 500 birds.

First the penguins must be warm and happy - most are kept overnight before washing, as it is very stressful and they need to get their strength up.

Then the birds are brought into the cleaning room and put on the table.

Normally detergent is used to clean wildlife caught in an oil slick. But the fuel oil that's spilled from the Rena is really thick, so we first rinse the birds with canola oil, sold as cooking oil at the supermarket. This helps soften the fuel oil and get off the really thick stuff.

Read on...

Penguins suffer as Antarctic krill declines

12 April 2011

By Mark Kinver
Science and environment reporter, BBC News

A number of penguin species found in western Antarctica are declining as a result of a fall in the availability of krill, a study has suggested.

Researchers, examining 30 years of data, said chinstrap and Adelie penguin numbers had been falling since 1986.

Warming waters, less sea-ice cover and more whale and seal numbers was cited as reducing the abundance of krill, the main food source for the penguins.

The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is a shrimp-like creature that reach lengths of about 6cm (2in) and is considered to be one of the most abundant species on the planet, being found in densities of up to 30,000 creatures in a cubic-metre of seawater.


It is also one of the key species in the ecosystems in and around Antarctica, as it is the dominant prey of nearly all vertebrates in the region, including chinstrap and Adelie penguins.

Warming to change

In their paper, a US team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said a number of factors were combining to change the shape of the area's environment.

"The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) and adjacent Scotia Sea support abundant wildlife populations, many of which were nearly [wiped out] by humans," they wrote.

"This region is also among the fastest warming areas on the planet, with 5-6C increases in mean winter air temperatures and associated decreases in winter sea-ice cover."


They added that analysis of data gathered during 30 years of field studies, and recent penguin surveys, challenged a leading scientific idea, known as the "sea-ice hypothesis", about how the region's ecosystems was changing.

"(It) proposes that reductions in winter sea-ice have led directly to declines in 'ice-loving' species by decreasing their winter habitat, while populations of 'ice-avoiding' species have increased," they explained.
However, they said that their findings showed that since the mid 1980s there had been a decline in both ice-loving Adelies (Pygoscelis adeliae) and ice-avoiding chinstraps (Pygoscelis antarctica), with both populations falling by up to 50%.

As a result, the researchers favoured a "more robust" hypothesis that penguin population numbers were linked to changes in the abundance of their main food source, krill.

"Linking trends in penguin abundance with trends in krill biomass explains why populations of Adelie and chinstrap penguins increased after competitors (fur seals, baleen whales and some fish) were nearly extirpated in the 19th to mid-20th Centuries, and currently are decreasing in response to climate change," they wrote.

The team said that it was estimated that there was in the region of 150 million tonnes of krill for predators after the global hunting era depleted the world's whale population.

During this period, data shows that there was a five-fold increase in chinstrap and Adelie numbers at breeding sites from the 1930s to the 1970s, they reported.

"The large populations of Adelie and chinstrap penguins were not sustained for long, however, and are now declining precipitously."

They added that this was happening as rising temperatures and decreases in sea-ice was altering the physical conditions required to sustain large krill populations.

"We hypothesise that the amount of krill available to penguins has declined because of the increased competition from recovering whale and fur seal populations, and from bottom-up, climate-driven changes that have altered this ecosystem significantly during the past two to three decades."

The US researchers concluded that the penguin numbers and krill abundance were likely to fall further if the warming trend in the region continued.

They wrote: "These conditions are particularly critical for chinstrap penguins because this species breeds almost exclusively in the WAP and Scotia Sea, where they have sustained declines in excess of 50% throughout their breeding range."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13036795
(Via Dawn Holloway)

Galapagos penguin and flightless cormorants survey

Annual Galapagos Penguin and Cormorant Census shows numbers are stable

December 2010. Over the course of 8 days, the Galapagos National Park Service conducted a partial census of penguins and cormorants at four sites on the islands of Isabela and Fernandina, in order to learn about the population status of these species. A partial census is carried out every year, while a complete census is conducted every five years or following strong El Niño years.

Partial census
A full census is carried out in 10 different areas within the archipelago, but the partial census is conducted in just 4 areas that are considered to have the greatest abundance of individuals based on findings from the previous 10 years. This year, birds were observed along the coasts of Fernandina Island between Punta Espinoza to Cape Douglas, and between Punta Mangrove to Punta Espinoza. On Isabela Island, observations were made from Cape Berkeley to Punta Albermarle and from Punta Essex to Punta Moreno.

To count penguins and cormorants, guards approach the shore in small boats. Using binoculars, they register individuals of each species present in the area. When possible, they go ashore to make observations on land.

Oceanographic and atmospheric data (sea and air temperature, water transparency and cloud cover) are recorded at fixed times at each site where penguins and cormorants are found.

721 penguins and 922 cormorants
A total of 721 penguins (Spheniscus mendiculus) and 922 flightless cormorants (Nannopterum harrisi) were counted, demonstrating that the size of the populations of these species in the islands remains similar to levels measured in recent years.

Microchips
During the census, park guards tagged 63 penguins and 39 cormorants with microchips, which will make its possible to identify these individuals in future years.

This census has been carried out since 1961. Penguins and flightless cormorants are endemic to Galapagos; they live mainly around the islands of Isabela and Fernandina.

The penguin, whose population size is small and whose distribution is very limited in the islands, are vulnerable because they require temperatures below 24 degrees Celsius in order to breed. Flightless cormorants have a high level of egg infertility, which also makes them a highly-vulnerable species.

Courtesy of the Galapagos Conservancy

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/galapagos-penguins.html

"Fraser's Penguins" Documents Stark Climate Change in the Antarctic

Bill Fraser’s decades-long research on the impact of climate change on the Antarctic Peninsula's decreasingly icy ecosystem—and, most famously, its tuxedoed inhabitants—is the subject of a new book.


Fraser’s Penguins: A Journey to the Future in Antarctica (Henry Holt and Co., $26) details the five months Yale Environment 360 senior editor and author Fen Montaigne ( Reeling in Russia ) spent in Antarctica with the ecologist studying thousands of Adélie penguins during their breeding season.

“It’s the tale of how Fraser came to believe—and I think it’s widely accepted now—that warming is the main cause behind the drop in the penguin populations,” Montaigne told SolveClimate News.

In a narrative cataloguing the day-to-day research on the Adélie penguins conducted by Fraser’s team, Montaigne also delves into the natural history of Antarctica; its allure for explorers like Sir Ernest Shackleton, whose ship Endurance was trapped and slowly crushed by pack ice; and the sharp impact of global warming on a pristine, unearthly environment that Montaigne calls “the closest thing to heaven on Earth.”

Since 1974, Fraser, a researcher with the Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) and president of Polar Oceans Research Group, has been studying the ecosystem of the northwestern Antarctic Peninsula, where the midwinter temperature has risen 11°F in just 60 years, making it one of the three most rapidly warming regions on the planet. (The other two are Siberia and the Arctic.)

Montaigne first visited Antarctica in 2004 to cover Fraser’s research for National Geographic. He spent a month tailing the scientist from his base at Palmer Station, one of three U.S. research centers on Antarctica.

In that month he was “so taken with the place, and the penguins, and how dramatic the warming was” that he was inspired to dig deeper into the subject.

Among other events he witnessed, notable was the collapse of a “big, big chunk” of ice hundreds of feet wide from the Marr Ice Piedmont glacier. Once connected to a rocky peninsula, “it just collapsed because the ice was retreating so fast,” Montaigne said. When it fell, it opened up a channel between two bodies of water that had been separated for thousands of years.

Melting Sea Ice Triggers Cascade Effect
Funded by an Antarctic Artists and Writers Grant from the National Science Foundation, Montaigne returned in October 2005 as an unpaid member of Fraser’s three-person birding team. He spent five months weighing, tagging and counting Adélie penguins in a 15-mile-wide research area near Palmer Station.

Since the mid 1970s, the penguin population in this zone has dropped some 85 percent to about 5,000, a depletion rate mirrored in other colonies on the northwestern Antarctic Peninsula. There are some 2.5 million Adélie penguins in all of Antarctica.

The main cause is melting sea ice in the Southern Ocean surrounding the Antarctic Peninsula where glaciers have retreated nearly 90 percent in the last three decades. There are now three fewer months of sea ice every year than there were in 1979, which means fewer krill larvae at the sea-ice edge and fewer silverfish eggs able to take refuge and mature beneath it.

Penguins use the sea ice as a feeding platform to feed on both, which means that the lack of sea ice is a triple whammy. It lowers the penguins' two main food sources at the same time that it limits their access to an increasingly slim supply.


Higher sea and air temperatures have also led to both more snow and more snow melt, both of which are problematic for the penguins. Deeper snowfall makes it harder to build nests. And once the snow melts, penguins find their eggs swimming in pools of icy water.


Meanwhile, Gentoo penguins are moving south to Antarctica, replacing the Adélies. Where there were once few fur seals there are now thousands.

“Ice-loving, ice-dependent species are fairing poorly, and ice-avoiding species are moving in. It’s kind of a natural process,” Montaigne said, hastening to add, “I’m not saying it’s a good process.”

Fraser’s Penguins documents the impact of climate change in a region that is on a longer time curve than the Arctic.

“Antarctica is a huge ice sheet one and a half times the size of the U.S. that is sometimes three miles deep,” Montaigne noted. “So it’s going to be a long time before it begins to melt in earnest. But warming has already breached this fortress of ice. That’s what’s important. Warming is more than nibbling at the edges. Warming has come to Antarctica.”

The question is, Montaigne said, “Once it hits in earnest, can we bar the door? In 50 years, 100 years, sea levels are going to just surge.”


By Jennifer Pinkowski at SolveClimate

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS381823940120101110

A penguin species faces extinction

By Derrick Z. Jackson
Globe Columnist / September 7, 2010

A YEAR ago, as I walked Boulders Beach, 45 minutes south of the metropolis of Cape Town, South Africa, I had no idea that I was staring extinction in the face.

Waddling at my feet were African penguins in a colony that seemingly coexisted cheerfully with the tourism of neighboring Simon’s Town. Parents groomed chicks with beaks in small depressions in the sand. They stood still for “family portraits.’’ One curious adult ambled up to my camera bag and poked at it. Back then, all I felt was the adrenaline of excitement any bird lover would feel seeing a penguin in the wild for the first time, even if this wild was rather tame.

A year later, I have the chill of realizing that, unless something changes, these penguins could well join the dodo, moa, great auk, or any of the large flightless birds we pushed into nonexistence. The African penguin has declined from at least a million birds in the 1920s to only 25,000 breeding pairs today in South Africa and Namibia. When I asked Jessica Kemper, senior seabird biologist for Namibia’s ministry of fisheries and marine resources, if the bird stood a chance of becoming extinct this century, she answered, “Big time.’’

Kemper said this last week at the New England Aquarium during the 7th International Penguin Conference. Held every three or four years since 1988, this conference reaffirmed in greater detail yet how the penguin is a red-flag species in our alteration of the planet. Of the world’s 18 penguin species, 10 are in serious population decline. The Galapagos penguin is down to 1,800 birds and facing a 30 percent chance of extinction in this century.

“People think because penguins live in protected areas, they think that they are all protected,’’ said researcher Pablo Garcia Borboroglu of Argentina, president of the Global Penguin Society. “They don’t know about the other world and the threats that are out there.’’

Wayne Trivelpiece, Antarctic ecosystem biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, reported on how even chinstrap and Adelie penguins — which are still relatively numerous — are experiencing considerable declines as climate change melts southern ice. Those penguins depend on krill, and krill feed on ice algae. As ice melts away, krill disappear. Trivelpiece said that krill density in some study areas has declined 80 percent since the 1970s. During that same period, the rate of survival to breeding age fell from around half to no more than 15 percent.

“Think of it like your freezer,’’ Trivelpiece said. “If your freezer is at 30 degrees, you have ice cubes. If your freezer is at 33, you have water in your trays. What’s happening to the penguins is one of the great examples of how a little bit of warmth is so dramatic.’’

The African penguin has declined so fast that researchers who thought things were fine only a decade ago are stunned. In just the last eight years, South Africa’s penguin population has dropped by nearly two-thirds. It was listed this year as “endangered’’ on the world Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The African penguin has been hit with a double whammy. First its seas were plundered by fishing fleets. Then ocean temperature changes appear to have driven off the remaining sources of anchovies and sardines, leaving the birds to feed on fish with only half the energy content. In the last decade, the bird has also been battered by oil spills in both South Africa and Namibia, and researchers in both countries see no end in sight to this threat as both countries plan more coastal refineries and mining operations.

“All you need is one oil spill in the wrong place and we’re in big trouble,’’ Kemper said. This puts a sobering twist on the 2005 hit documentary “March of the Penguins.’’ Narrator Morgan Freeman said the long march, mating, and rearing of an emperor penguin chick in frigid conditions was a love story. Suddenly, the penguin needs our love, before we make it too warm for them to survive.

While the news for penguins is troubling, record numbers of Atlantic puffins continue to breed in Audubon’s Project Puffin in Maine. It was also a good year for loons in New Hampshire, according to the Loon Preservation Committee. For my annual update on the restoration of puffins and protection of loons, see the sidebar accompanying the online version of this column at www.boston.com.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/09/07/a_penguin_species_faces_extinction/

Hundreds of dead penguins washed up in Brazil

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10707906
21 July 2010
Last updated at 01:41

Hundreds of penguins have been washed up dead on the beaches of Brazil.Scientists are still investigating what could have caused the death of around 500 animals found on the shores of Sao Paulo state.They say autopsies carried out on some of the carcasses suggest they could have starved to death, as their stomachs were completely empty.They are now trying to establish if strong currents and colder temperatures may be to blame.Thiago do Nascimento of the Peruibe Aquarium says the cooler than usual temperatures off the coast could have driven away the fish and squid the penguins feed on.But he did not rule out that overfishing could have decimated the penguins' food sources.Mr Nascimento said between 100 and 150 penguins showed up on the beaches every year, but that they were normally alive, with only around 10 washed up dead in an average year."What worries us this year, is the absurdly high number of penguins that have appeared dead in a short period of time," he told the Associated Press news agency.
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