Colin Miskelly

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Riders of the storm – the severely depleted next generation

13 December 2011 – 11.29am

2011 was a terrible year for New Zealand seabirds. The Rena oil spill in October received the most media coverage and provided dramatic images (see Rena oil spill blogs). More insidious were the impacts of the Japanese earthquake and ensuing tsunami in March. A plume of radioactive fallout from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant contaminated the North Pacific feeding grounds of several New Zealand-breeding species, including flesh-footed shearwater, sooty shearwater (muttonbird), Buller’s shearwater and mottled petrel.

Fluttering shearwaters killed by the Rena oil spill. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

However, the most extreme mortality event for any single species was a severe July storm estimated to have killed several hundred thousand broad-billed prions (see Riders of the storm – thousands of seabirds perish on New Zealand shores). The broad-billed prion is a poorly studied species. There are no well-monitored populations, and so there are few opportunities to determine the impact of the storm at a population level.

Prions killed during the July 2011 storm event. Photo: Alan Tennyson, Te Papa

In the New Zealand region, broad-billed prions breed on small islands in the Chatham Islands, Fiordland, and around Stewart Island, and on the Snares Islands. A few breed on islets and stacks off Whenua Hou/Codfish Island, north-west of Stewart Island. I visited tiny Trig Island (a known broad-billed prion breeding site) there on 8 December, and found a ghost town.

Trig Island, off the east coast of Codfish Island. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa, December 2011

The peaty soil was honeycombed with an estimated 500 burrows, but 90% looked like they had not been visited at all this season. In early December, most burrows should contain large chicks, but I found only four in about 50 active burrows inspected, and estimated only about ten chicks to be present on the island (i.e. about 2% of burrows contained chicks).

Broad-billed prion chick, Trig Island, Codfish Island, December 2011. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

The storm that killed so many broad-billed prions hit 6 weeks before broad-billed prions begin to lay. The large number of active burrows on Trig Island that did not contain chicks may be due to an imbalance in the sex ratio of birds that survived the storm, or those that lost a mate may not have had time to find a new one before it was time to breed.

Feather samples taken from the four chicks handled, along with older skeletal remains found on the island, will be used as part of a Te Papa genetic study seeking to determine where the vast numbers of birds killed in July came from. Efforts will be made to collect genetic samples from other breeding sites as part of this study.

Additional information on the wildlife of Codfish Island can be found on
http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2011/12/13/codfish-island-1934-and-2011-in-the-footsteps-of-edgar-stead-part-4/
and
http://www.birdingnz.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1516

By Colin Miskelly, Curator Terrestrial Vertebrates

Posted in Biodiversity, Birds, Disasters, Field trips | Tagged broad-billed prion, Codfish Island, Prion, seabird mortality | Comments (4)

Who wrote that? Forensic analysis of museum specimen labels

1 November 2011 – 10.38am

Label attached to a Chatham Island snipe specimen collected in 1900. Image: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

Museum curators often need to identify handwriting. In the Bird department this includes determining who wrote historical register entries and specimen labels, or who was responsible for annotations on original documents. Much of this skill is learnt on the job, and we keep a file of examples of writing by earlier curators. But it is important to recognise your limitations, and when it is time to call on the experts. In this case it was the Document Examination Section of the New Zealand Police whom we called.

Gordon Sharfe and Trish James (NZ Police) and Colin Miskelly (Curator Terrestrial Vertebrates, Te Papa) examine century-old bird specimens in the Te Papa collection. Photo: Alan Tennyson, Te Papa

The enquiry was driven by a 114-year-old whodunit. Who collected the type specimens of the South Island (=Stewart Island) snipe on Jacky Lee Island in 1897 & 1898? The labels on some specimens were signed by Henry Travers, a Wellington-based collector and dealer in bird skins and plant specimens. Although Travers has long been credited with the discovery of this now-extinct snipe, I suspected that – apart from trips to the subantarctic islands in 1890 and 1894 – Travers never ventured south of Banks Peninsula.

The main question that I asked of Trish James (Senior Document Examiner, NZ Police) was whether any of the ‘Travers’ labels on birds collected from the Stewart Island region between 1897 and 1905 had been written by someone other than Travers. And she concluded that some had. Four of the labels had writing that differed from Travers’s, particularly in the form of the capital S and F, and the lower case t. Yet the words were written on the typical ornate labels that Travers used on most of his specimens, and tied on with his characteristic pink cotton.

Labels written by Henry Travers (top row), Sigvard Dannefærd (bottom row), and an unknown specimen collector apparently working for both Travers and Dannefærd (middle three rows). Image: Colin Miskelly (Te Papa)

Even more intriguing, this same writing was evident on a series of snipe and shore plover specimens from the Chatham Islands collected in 1899 & 1900. And this time the writing was on labels characteristic of both Henry Travers and his main competitor at the time, Sigvard Dannefærd (who was based first in Auckland and later in Rotorua). The photo shows in row 1 (A & B) both sides of a label written by Travers, and in row 5 (I & J) two labels written by Dannefærd. In between are six labels (C-H) written by the mystery bird collector. Rows 2 & 3 show Travers type labels, and row 4 shows Dannefærd type labels, but the writing is not theirs.

Trish James (Senior Document Examiner) with enlarged images of bird specimen labels at NZ Police National Headquarters. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

Between them Travers and Dannefærd sold over 500 bird specimens to the Colonial and then Dominion Museum (now Te Papa), and many hundreds more ended up in either the British Museum of Natural History or the American Museum of Natural History (which purchased Lord Rothschild’s enormous private collection in 1932). Travers and Dannefærd collected or traded many notable specimens, including the name-bearing types of black robin, Chatham Island rail, Stephens Island wren, Snares Island fernbird, Snares Island tomtit, Hutton’s shearwater, and the South Island snipe. But they were both notorious for their poor record keeping. As a result of the forensic examination completed by Trish James, we now know that even the labels and cotton that we thought were diagnostic signatures of both men are unreliable. Both of them must have provided blank labels (and possibly spools of cotton) to others collecting birds on their behalf, and on at least some occasions they were both employing the same man!

Posted in Birds, History, Museums | Tagged handwriting, Henry Travers, Sigvard Dannefaerd | Comments (0)

Take that you dirty rat! – the unglamorous side of museum work

20 October 2011 – 1.22pm

The position of Curator Terrestrial Vertebrates was a new one for Te Papa in mid 2010. My predecessor had been the Curator of Birds, and the expanded role meant that for the first time a curator would be responsible for land mammals, as well as for birds, reptiles and frogs. It didn’t take long to discover the logic behind the new job description…

Waiting in a corner of the spirit collection area were two fork-lift pallet loads of long-neglected rodent specimens. Most had been collected by members of the former Ecology Division DSIR and New Zealand Wildlife Service. They had been donated to the National Museum during the massive government service restructurings of the late 1980s that resulted in the creation of successor agencies Landcare Research and the Department of Conservation.

Kiore caught in snap trap, Taranga (Hen Island). Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

Despite the turmoil of restructuring and job losses, both the Department of Conservation and Landcare Research embarked on two decades of developing huge advances in pest eradication techniques. Most notable were developments in the application and use of anticoagulant baits to eradicate four species of introduced rodents from ever larger islands. As an unexpected consequence, those two unloved and nearly forgotten pallet loads of festering and desiccating specimens contained many examples of rodent populations that are now extinct.

A kiore specimen being prepared for preservation in the field, Taranga (Hen Island), December 2010. This population has since been eradicated by the Department of Conservation. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

Between 1987 and 2007, kiore (Pacific rats), Norway rats, ship rats and house mice were eradicated from over 90 islands around New Zealand, ranging in size up to 11,300 hectare Campbell Island. Examples of rats and mice from many of these islands were in jars on those two pallets, but until they were catalogued and entered into Te Papa’s electronic database, there was no easy way to determine which of the extirpated rodent populations were represented in the national collection.

Tom Schultz checking collection details on a rat specimen in the Te Papa spirit collection. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

With the help of Natural Environment collection technician Tom Schultz over the last 4 months, all the samples have been sorted, and decisions made on which to keep as spirit specimens versus prepared as skeletons versus sent to the landfill. All 664 spirit specimens that we chose to keep have been labelled, placed in jars of ethanol in the spirit collection, and all their data entered in the EMu electronic database.

Rat specimens in the Te Papa spirit collection. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

We now know that among the 323 kiore, 77 Norway rat, 52 ship rat and 212 house mouse spirit specimens are examples of 43 populations that have been eradicated for conservation reasons. Extirpated populations represented include:

Kiore (Pacific rat) Rattus exulans: Kermadec Is (Raoul & Macauley), Moturua I. (Bay of Islands), Lady Alice I. (Chicken Is), Taranga (Hen I. – eradication yet to be confirmed), Mokohinau Is (Burgess I., Trig I., Stacks C, D & F), Tiritiri Matangi I., Little Barrier I., Cuvier I., Mercury Is (Red Mercury, Stanley, Double & Korapuki Is), Ohena I., Middle Chain I. (Aldermen Is), Mayor I. (Tuhua), Rurima Rocks, Kapiti I., Long I. & Motuara I. (Queen Charlotte Sound), Centre Island (Foveaux Strait), Codfish I. (Whenua Hou), and Putauhinu I.

Norway rat Rattus norvegicus: Raoul I., Bay of Islands (Motukiekie, Moturua, Okahu, Urupukapuka & Waewaetorea Is), Motutapu I., Whale I. (Moutohora), Breaksea I. (Fiordland), and Campbell I.

Ship rat Rattus rattus: Rangitoto I., Big South Cape I. (Taukihepa), and Macquarie I. (eradication yet to be confirmed for latter).

House mouse Mus musculus: Allports I. (Queen Charlotte Sound), Enderby I. (Auckland Is), and Macquarie I. (eradication yet to be confirmed for latter).

Posted in Biodiversity, Mammals | Tagged kiore, mouse, rat, rodents | Comments (2)

Re-articulation of Phar Lap’s skeleton – bold decisions and expert advice

19 October 2011 – 2.14pm

Phar Lap’s skeleton is one of Te Papa’s best known exhibits. Perhaps the most famous horse ever to emerge from Australasia, the national identity of Phar Lap is as intensely debated each side of the Tasman as is who invented the pavlova.

Foaled at Seadown, near Timaru, in 1926, Phar Lap was bought by the Sydney-based American businessman David J. Davis in 1928, and was trained and raced in Australia. He dominated the Australian racing scene during the Great Depression, providing the one sure bet during desperate economic times.

Dr Alex Davies checks the positioning of Phar Lap’s thoracic vertebrae. Photo: Kate Whitley, Te Papa

In the four years of his racing career, Phar Lap won 37 of 51 races he entered, including the Melbourne Cup in 1930. He improved with age, including winning 14 races in a row in 1930-31, and winning 32 of his last 35 starts. Davis had him shipped to North America (against the wishes of co-owner Harry Telford), where he won his only race there – the Agua Caliente Handicap – in race record time. He died in mysterious circumstances soon after the race, on 5 April 1932.

Following his death, Phar Lap’s enormous heart was donated to the Institute of Anatomy in Canberra (it is now in the National Museum of Australia, Canberra), the mounted hide is in the Melbourne Museum, and the skeleton was first displayed in the Dominion Museum (now Te Papa) in 1938.

Robert Clendon and Dr Alex Davies discuss the positioning of Phar Lap’s left forelimb and scapula. Photo: Kate Whitley, Te Papa

The skeleton was loaned to the Melbourne Museum in September 2010 as part of the celebrations for the 150th running of the Melbourne Cup. Displayed alongside the magnificently taxidermied hide for the first time, it was clear that the skeleton was overdue for a makeover. Te Papa staff had long debated whether it was more important to maintain the 1938 articulation as an historic exhibit, or whether to re-articulate the skeleton in an anatomically more correct posture. The latter argument has finally been accepted!

The 1938 articulation was done by Dominion Museum taxidermist Charles Lindsay and osteologist E.H. Gibson of the Otago Medical School. Given that neither man was an expert in equine anatomy, they did a remarkable job. But there are a series of minor errors that collectively mean that the skeleton does not quite match the proud physique of Phar Lap in his prime. This was exacerbated by metal fatigue of the rod holding up the neck and skull, resulting in the skull drooping from its original position.

A 1938 newspaper clipping showing the original Phar Lap articulation. E.H. Gibson on left, Charles Lindsay on right. Image: Te Papa

Phar Lap’s skeleton has been returned to Te Papa, and a team is working to have the skeleton re-articulated and back on display early in 2012. A crucial member of the team is retired associate professor of veterinary anatomy Dr Alex Davies. Dr Davies has had a long interest in Phar Lap, and is relishing the opportunity to work alongside Te Papa staff in making sure that the re-articulation is as accurate as possible.

One of the key decisions in the re-articulation process is to present the skeleton against a life-sized image of the Phar Lap mount from Melbourne Museum. We intend to match the posture of the skeleton closely to that of the skin. The physical work is being undertaken by object conservation staff Robert Clendon and Hayden Prujean, with expert advice from Dr Davies.

How to mount a horse? Hayden Prujean and Alex Davies discuss the re-articulation of Phar Lap’s skeleton. Photo: Kate Whitley, Te Papa

Some of the changes that have already been made include increasing the length and curvature of the spine, and lowering it at the front to increase the projection of the shoulder blades above the spine. More subtle adjustments include improving the position of the minor limb elements, including the patella (knee-cap) and sesamoid bones.

Posted in Collections Online, Conservation, Exhibitions, History, Mammals | Tagged horse racing, horse skeleton, Phar Lap, race horse | Comments (1)

What bird is that? The grim task of identifying seabirds killed by the M.V. Rena oil spill

14 October 2011 – 3.53pm

Fluttering shearwaters coated in oil from the M.V. Rena. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

Te Papa bird staff are providing expert assistance to Maritime New Zealand and Massey University veterinary staff in the form of identifying birds affected by the oil spill. Three current and one former staff member have been a ‘tag team’ since 12 October, identifying the hundreds of corpses recovered by the teams patrolling the beaches, plus any picked up at sea. There are many seabird species potentially present in the Bay of Plenty at this time of year. Making sure that each bird is correctly identified is essential for understanding the impacts of the spill. This information will be crucial if there is any potential for environmental mitigation after the clean-up is complete.

Colin Miskelly (Te Papa's Curator Terrestrial Vertebrates) with a heavily oiled northern giant petrel. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

Identifying heavily oiled birds is a challenge, especially when the oil is thick and tar-like. Not only are all plumage markings, bill and leg colour concealed, but it can even be difficult to determine the shape of the bill, which is otherwise diagnostic for many species. For some birds it is necessary to use body structure – the relative length of the tail separates the similarly-sized Buller’s and sooty shearwaters. For others, knowing the one crucial identification character to check (e.g. leg colour) to separate species pairs means that a bird can be identified more rapidly.

Karen and Lucy with oiled seabirds inside the pathology tent. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

The work is dirty, smelly, frustrating, and deeply saddening for anyone who knows the beauty of these birds in their prime. Over 20 species of seabird have been identified dead and coated with oil so far, ranging in size from tiny white-faced storm petrels to an enormous wandering albatross. The three main species affected (common diving petrel, fluttering shearwater and Buller’s shearwater) are not threatened species, but their populations will take decades to recover from a mortality event of this scale. All lay a maximum of one egg per pair each year, and the two shearwaters do not start to breed until they are about 5 years old.

Posted in Bay of Plenty oil spill, Biodiversity, Birds, Disasters, Field trips | Tagged M.V. Rena, oil spill, Seabird | Comments (3)

The global penguin – Part 10. It’s only a game.

12 September 2011 – 12.47pm

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the tenth instalment of the unfolding story of the emperor penguin that went where none had gone before. Previous blogs on the penguin were posted between 23 June and 8 September.

Israel Dagg scores the opening try at the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Photo : Reuters

One story has dominated New Zealand media since Friday 9 September 2011. The opening of the 7th Rugby World Cup. A spectacular opening ceremony at Eden Park was followed by the top-ranked All Blacks’ clash with Tonga. Endless column-inches and air-time were filled with discussion of whether tyro Israel Dagg had done enough with his 2-try haul to displace veteran fullback Mils Muliaina, whether captain Richie McCaw has lost his mojo, and the truly big question of whether the All Blacks (the most successful international sports team in world history) can win back the William Webb Ellis trophy that they last held following the inaugural 1987 tournament.

Not surprisingly, the national media have paid no attention in the one ongoing New Zealand story that is the focus of international interest: a missing penguin.

Blog #9 “Heading home, or heading east?” described the south-easterly track that the penguin took for the first 4 days after his release, from 4 September to the (NZ time) morning of 8 September. For the next 24 hours he continued on an easterly track. And then nothing. The last signal was received at 20:11:51 UTC on 8 September (about 8:12 am on 9 September, NZ Standard Time).

The emperor penguin's path from release on 4 September until transmissions ceased on 9 September. Map supplied by Sirtrack

There are a multitude of reasons why the signal from the transmitter could fail to appear on our screens, and most of them have been mentioned in comments on the previous blog or in tweets on the Sirtrack NZEmperor website. These range from the transmitter no longer sending a signal (transmitter failure or damage), to signals not being received by the satellite (e.g. due to the penguin diving, or the transmitter falling off and sinking, or the transmitter being inside a larger predator), to not enough signals being received (4 or more signals are required per satellite pass for a plotable fix), through to technical failures at the satellite or terrestrial receiving station, or in the software used to filter and map the locations.

For a while, it appeared that an extra-terrestrial higher authority was responsible for the lack of signals. Intense solar flare activity since 9 September played havoc with satellite communications, leading to widespread speculation that this was blocking transmission of the transmitter signals. But sadly no; data from other satellite transmitters have been received by Sirtrack without any apparent problems. The lack of even a single satellite message since last Friday indicates that the transmitter has not broken the surface of the sea at all since then.

The last data download received from the KiwiSat 202 satellite transmitter glued to the emperor penguin's back. Data funded by Gareth Morgan KiwiSaver and provided by Sirtrack

It is unlikely that we will ever know what caused the transmissions to cease, but it is time to harden up to the reality that the penguin has returned to the anonymity from which he emerged on 20 June. The Sirtrack team will keep trying to recover a signal, and we will post an update if they succeed. And maybe, just maybe, he will surprise us all by turning up at a monitored emperor penguin colony, where the transponder inserted under the skin on his thigh will remind us all that once upon a time, a long time ago, he was more than just another penguin.

Previous blogs on this topic:

The global penguin – Part 1. How a lone emperor ventured into superstardom

The global penguin – Part 2. The young emperor penguin pushes the boundaries and is taken into care

The global penguin – Part 3. No latitude for error: a young emperor penguin a long way from home

The global penguin – Part 4. How to track a wandering emperor penguin

The global penguin – Part 5. The rocky road to fame

The global penguin – Part 6. Hitching a ride south

The global penguin – Part 7. The wandering emperor penguin enters the technological age

The global penguin – Part 8. Free at last!

The global penguin – Part 9. Heading home, or heading east?

For later blogs on this bird:

The global penguin – Part 11. How old was the Peka Peka emperor penguin?

The global penguin – Part 12. The final word?

Posted in Biodiversity, Birds, Penguins | Tagged Emperor penguin, Happy Feet, Our Far South, Sirtrack | Comments (376)

The global penguin – Part 9. Heading home, or heading east?

8 September 2011 – 12.48pm

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the ninth instalment of the unfolding story of the emperor penguin that went where none had gone before. Previous blogs on the penguin were posted between 23 June and 5 September.

Time to take the plunge! Photo: Lisa Argilla, Wellington Zoo & NIWA

It is four days since the world’s most famous penguin escaped down the stern ramp of the Tangaroa. After two months of intense scrutiny, you might think that he was slipping into the obscurity of being a speck in the great southern ocean, and the anonymity of being one of over 300,000 emperor penguins on the planet. No such luck! Thanks to the Sirtrack KiwiSat 202 satellite transmitter glued to his back, his every move is watched by millions of adoring spheniscophiles around the world. But that is hyperbole; the duty cycle of the transmitter has it turned on for only 7 hours per day. This means that for 17 hours a day he can swim wherever he likes without anyone telling him that he is swimming in the wrong direction (as long as he ends up further south when the transmitter turns on again).

The emperor penguin's track for the first 4 days after his release. Image courtesy of Sirtrack

What does his track tell us after 96 hours? Overall, he has travelled about 100 km in a south-easterly direction, travelling at a rate of about 1.2 km per hour (29.3 km per day). But where would he have ended up if he had floated passively on the surface, allowing currents to carry him like inanimate flotsam? We have the answer to that due to the known movements of 30 Global Drifter Program buoys that have passed near Campbell Island (data from NIWA).

Campbell Island sits in the path of the mightiest oceanic current on the planet, far more massive than the Amazon River. Driven by strong westerly winds, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current south of New Zealand flows eastward at a rate of nearly 150 million cubic metres per second. This is about 150 times the water flow of all the world’s rivers combined.

Tracks of 30 Global Drifter Buoys past Campbell Island. Image courtesy of NIWA

On average, the drifter buoys near Campbell Island moved in an east-northeast direction at an average rate of 10.5 km per day. This means that if the penguin had not been actively swimming, he would now be about 42 km east-northeast of his release point. If passive movement due to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is allowed for, the distance that the emperor penguin has travelled by active swimming is approximately 91 km in a south-southeast direction at a rate of 1.1 km per hour (26.9 km per day).

If he keeps on this track and speed, he will reach the pack ice off Marie Byrd Land (between the Ross Sea and the Amundsen Sea) about the end of November. Will he find other emperor penguins there? Yes – as the attached map shows, there are two known and two probable emperor penguin colonies along this remote stretch of the Antarctic coast. The probable colonies have never been visited by humans; they were discovered by satellite imagery detecting faecal staining on the fast-ice, known to be characteristic of emperor penguin colonies.

Locations of emperor penguin colonies around Antarctica. Image courtesy of Barbara Wienecke, Australian Antarctic Division

This strong easterly drift also raises the question of where the peripatetic Peka Peka penguin came from. If he travelled as far east as he did north on his way to New Zealand, then it is likely that he came from one of the colonies in the Australian Antarctic sector, rather than from one of the cluster of colonies on the western side of the Ross Sea.

Previous blogs on this topic:

The global penguin – Part 1. How a lone emperor ventured into superstardom

The global penguin – Part 2. The young emperor penguin pushes the boundaries and is taken into care

The global penguin – Part 3. No latitude for error: a young emperor penguin a long way from home

The global penguin – Part 4. How to track a wandering emperor penguin

The global penguin – Part 5. The rocky road to fame

The global penguin – Part 6. Hitching a ride south

The global penguin – Part 7. The wandering emperor penguin enters the technological age

The global penguin – Part 8. Free at last!

For later blogs on this bird:

The global penguin – Part 10. It’s only a game

The global penguin – Part 11. How old was the Peka Peka emperor penguin?

The global penguin – Part 12. The final word?

Posted in Biodiversity, Birds, Penguins | Tagged Emperor penguin, Happy Feet, Our Far South, Penguins, Sirtrack | Comments (174)

The global penguin – Part 8. Free at last!

5 September 2011 – 10.35am

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the eighth instalment of the unfolding story of the emperor penguin that went where none had gone before (at least in the age of digital media). Previous blogs on the penguin were posted between 23 June and 29 August.

So long and thanks for all the fish! The emperor penguin returns to the ocean. Photo: Lisa Argilla, Wellington Zoo & NIWA

Seventy-six days after he stepped ashore on Peka Peka Beach (and 72 days after he was taken into care), the wandering emperor penguin has been returned to the southern ocean. At 10:28 am on 4 September, he slipped unceremoniously backwards down a tarpaulin ramp fixed to the stern ramp of the Tangaroa, and slipped from sight. The release site was in water 285 metres deep at 51 degrees 42 minutes south; this is about 1250 km south of Peka Peka, and 78 km north of Campbell Island.

His release was delayed by two days due to very rough sea conditions on Tangaroa’s voyage south from Wellington. For more details, see Lisa Argilla’s blog on the Wellington Zoo website. Lisa and two NIWA staff cared for the penguin while he was on board, housed in a specially designed insulated crate on the ship’s deck.

The emperor penguin about to leave his crate and return to the sea. Photo: NIWA

As the crate was non-metallic, and not inside the ship’s hull, the satellite transmitter glued to the penguin’s back successfully transmitted data during the entire voyage south. The transmitter was constructed and donated by Sirtrack, and data downloads are being sponsored by Gareth Morgan KiwiSaver – you can follow his progress on both the Sirtrack and Our Far South websites.

The transmitter has successfully sent several signals since the bird was released, and showed that he has moved slightly east then south since release. Of course there is no guarantee that he will continue to swim south (he swam north last time he was in the sea!). It may take a few days for him to get his bearings and start moving in a definite direction.

Monument Harbour on the south coast of Campbell Island. Jacquemart Island (partly concealed by Eboule Peninsula) is the southernmost piece of New Zealand sovereign territory. Photo: Colin Miskelly

Campbell Island is the southernmost of New Zealand’s five subantarctic island groups. Two species of penguins breed there – the solitary-breeding yellow-eyed penguin, and the colonial-breeding eastern rockhopper penguin (one of the crested penguins). Several other species of penguin turn up as non-breeding vagrants, including frequent sightings of king penguins – slightly smaller and more colourful relatives of the emperor penguin. There are no records of emperor penguins ashore on Campbell Island, but it is within the at-sea range of juvenile emperor penguins.

King penguins on South Georgia. Photo: Colin Miskelly

King penguins breed in large numbers on Australian-administered Macquarie Island 720 km west-southwest of Campbell Island. Apart from Peka Peka Beach in 2011 and Oreti Beach (Invercargill) in 1967, Macquarie Island is the only other site close to New Zealand where emperor penguins have been found ashore, with birds seen there in Feb 1997 and Feb 1998.

Previous blogs on this topic:

The global penguin – Part 1. How a lone emperor ventured into superstardom

The global penguin – Part 2. The young emperor penguin pushes the boundaries and is taken into care

The global penguin – Part 3. No latitude for error: a young emperor penguin a long way from home

The global penguin – Part 4. How to track a wandering emperor penguin

The global penguin – Part 5. The rocky road to fame

The global penguin – Part 6. Hitching a ride south

The global penguin – Part 7. The wandering emperor penguin enters the technological age

For later blogs on this bird:

The global penguin – Part 9. Heading home, or heading east?

The global penguin – Part 10. It’s only a game

The global penguin – Part 11. How old was the Peka Peka emperor penguin?

The global penguin – Part 12. The final word?

Posted in Biodiversity, Birds, Penguins | Tagged Emperor penguin, Happy Feet | Comments (28)

A Te Papa curator in Ecuador

29 August 2011 – 5.54pm

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Colin Miskelly is in Guayaquil as the expert advisor to the New Zealand delegation at the 6th ACAP (Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels) meeting, and has provided this report.

Waved albatross adult brooding a small chick on Isla de la Plata, Ecuador, on 27 August 2011. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

The ACAP meeting has been a great opportunity to meet with albatross researchers and conservation workers from around the globe, which has direct relevance to two Te Papa events in the pipeline. The first is a proposed major exhibition on albatrosses, which is in the planning stages. The albatross research community not only provide the exciting new stories, but crucially may provide ways to obtain specimens that could be used to tell the stories. The days of collecting live bird specimens for exhibitions are long over both in New Zealand and much of the world, and so museums are often reliant on field researchers and wildlife managers to provide freshly dead specimens that they may find in the course of their work.

Te Papa will also be hosting the 5th International Albatross and Petrel Conference in August 2012 (organised by NIWA staff). Many of the ACAP delegates are hoping to come, and have been seeking information from the New Zealand delegates about both the conference and other opportunities while they are in the country.

Ten of us organised a one-day field trip to Isla de la Plata during a break in the meeting. This was a long way to travel in a day – 3 hours driving each way to Puerto Lopez, and over 2 hours each way in a boat out to the island. But it was worth it for the privilege of seeing one of the world’s most endangered albatrosses – a single waved albatross brooding its small chick. Most of the world’s waved albatross population breeds on Hood Island in the Galapagos Islands, but a few pairs breed on Isla de la Plata, which is sometimes referred to as the poor man’s Galapagos.

Guayaquil is a large city of about 2 million people, but still has some interesting wildlife near the city centre. From the windows of the fourth floor meeting room we could see large iguanas in the canopy of the trees in a central city park. These impressive beasts are green iguanas, and go by the easy-to-remember scientific name Iguana iguana.

Green iguana in Guayaquil city park, August 2011. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

Posted in Biodiversity, Birds, Field trips, Reptiles | Tagged albatross, Isla de la Plata, waved albatross | Comments (0)

The global penguin – Part 6. Hitching a ride south

19 August 2011 – 11.20am

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the sixth part of the unfolding story of the emperor penguin that went where none had gone before (at least in the age of digital media). Colin is a member of the committee advising on the care and rehabilitation of the bird, and told the first five parts of its story in Te Papa blogs posted between 23 June and 22 July.

The emperor penguin at Wellington Zoo. Photo: Kate Baker, Wellington Zoo

It’s time to go! After nearly two months in care, a decision has been made on how the emperor penguin will be returned to subantarctic waters. After a satellite tag has been glued to his lower back, he will be placed in a purpose-built crate and loaded on to the NIWA research vessel Tangaroa at its berth in Wellington Harbour, a few kilometres from Wellington Zoo, on 29 August.

The Tangaroa will be undertaking an acoustic survey of southern blue whiting fish stocks in the vicinity of Campbell Island during most of September. Campbell Island is the southernmost of New Zealand’s subantarctic islands; it lies at 52.5 degrees south, approximately 1100 km north of the maximum extent of the Antarctic pack ice. This is at the northern edge of the at-sea range of immature emperor penguins (see blog of 6 July).

Tangaroa – the pride of the NIWA fleet. Photo: NIWA

During the four or so days that the Tangaroa steams south from Wellington, the penguin will be cared for by Dr Lisa Argilla, veterinary science manager at Wellington Zoo, with assistance from NIWA staff. There will be no room on board for media, and so TV crews will have to say their farewells to the penguin on the wharf on 29 August. The release should be videoed, and we are hoping that Lisa and team will be able to relay the footage via a satellite link.

After his release on about 2 September, we should be able to follow the emperor penguin’s progress on both the Sirtrack and Our Far South websites (see blog of 11 July). I’ll provide URLs in a later blog, once the pages are up and running.

The satellite tag constructed and donated by Sirtrack. Photo: Colin Miskelly, Te Papa

The satellite tag is not a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit. As partially explained on 11 July, the tag works by transmitting a signal every 45 seconds at times of the day when a polar orbiting satellite is passing overhead. In order to get an accurate fix (within a few hundred metres of where the bird is), the satellite needs to pick up four or more signals per pass. If fewer signals are detected, the penguin’s location will be determined with a lower level of accuracy (typically within a few kilometres of the correct position). The Sirtrack team have developed a programme to check the accuracy of the locations, and plot only those that are plausible and sufficiently accurate.

The location data should be accurate enough to tell if the penguin sets foot on any of the island groups in the southern ocean, but not with the level of precision that a more bulky GPS transmitter would provide.

The penguin has been experiencing polar conditions in Wellington, with the heaviest snowfall in decades gracing the city during 14-16 August, only three weeks after the coldest day ever recorded there. While Wellington residents shivered, the cold conditions cooled the small pool in the The Nest Te Kōhanga, the animal hospital at Wellington Zoo, allowing the penguin to have short swims on 25 July, and 14-20 August.

Taking to the water on 19 August. Photo: Saphira Brilliant Nrew

He is in great condition, weighing in at close to 27 kg. Allowing for the sand removed from his stomach and throat, this is about 6 kg more than when he was brought into care. It could be a rude shock for him to return to catching his own food after 2 months of being handfed young salmon!