Te Papa&#039;s Blog

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

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

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

http://www.sirtrack.co.nz/
http://www.argos-system.org
http://www.ourfarsouth.org/

Posted in Biodiversity, Birds, Penguins | Tagged Emperor penguin, geology, Happy Feet, wellington zoo | Comments (24)

Riders of the storm – thousands of seabirds perish on New Zealand shores

18 July 2011 – 2.24pm

It started as a trickle and soon developed into a flood of devastating proportions. On 11 July 2011 I received an email enquiry from a family at Waikanae seeking help with identifying an unusual seabird that they had found dead on their driveway. It was a Salvin’s prion, a not-too-unexpected discovery near the coast during a winter storm. But the next day a Department of Conservation colleague phoned from Masterton reporting a dozen live prions found scattered inland in the Wairarapa, on the sheltered (eastern) side of the Tararua Range. If that number had reached the leeside, what was happening of the exposed western coast? It didn’t take long to find out.

By 14 July over a thousand live prions had been handed in to wildlife care centres in Wellington and Manawatu, an alarming number given that during prion ‘wrecks’, only a tiny fraction of the birds are still alive by the time they reach land. But what is a prion? and why do they wreck?

Fig. 1. Some of the 660+ stranded prions delivered to Wellington Zoo. These are all broad-billed prions. Photo: Colin Miskelly. Copyright Te Papa

Prions (the singular is pronounced ‘pry-on’) are a group of six small closely-related seabirds that are hugely abundant in southern oceans. They are petrels, and like most petrels, typically breed in enormous colonies on remote islands free of introduced predators. They should not be confused with the other use of the word (in this case pronounced ‘pree-on’) used for a particularly nasty group of infectious proteins that cause the brain-wasting Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans, plus mad-cow disease, and scrapie in sheep.

All prion (bird) species are very similar in size and plumage markings, with the most obvious difference being bill shape, which varies from broad through to narrow or chunky. Within this continuum of variation, some pairs of species are very difficult to distinguish from each other.

Fig. 2. Bill shapes of four species of prions. Left to right: broad-billed prion, Salvin’s prion, Antarctic prion and fairy prion. Photo: Colin Miskelly. Copyright Te Papa.

The three species with the widest bills have prominent lamellae (comb-like structures) along the edge of the upper mandible, used to filter tiny crustaceans and other small animals and their eggs from sea-water. When combined with a muscular tongue and an extendible pouch below the bill, these adaptations recall those of baleen whales, which feed in a similar way. Perhaps this is why prions are sometimes referred to as ‘whale-birds’.

Fig. 3. Lamellae (comb-like filters on the edge of the upper mandible) on a broad-billed prion. Photo: Colin Miskelly. Copyright Te Papa.

Prions are well known to New Zealand birdwatchers, even if they are frustratingly difficult to distinguish at sea. Members of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand have for many years patrolled the New Zealand coastline recording the numbers and identities of birds cast ashore. For many, this is the only way to become familiar with prions, particularly in those years when large multi-species wrecks occur. The results of these ‘beach patrols’ are occasionally published in the OSNZ’s journal Notornis. Between 1960 and 1996, over 86,000 prions were found dead on New Zealand beaches; large wrecks occurred in 1961, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1984-86 and 2002, with over 10,000 birds cast ashore in 1974, 1985 and 2002. Earlier wrecks occurred in 1878, 1918 and 1932.

Like all petrels, prions are true seabirds, spending their entire lives at sea apart from the 4 months when they are tied to a nesting burrow and the care of their single egg and resultant chick. At other times they are constantly on the move, often in vast flocks, skimming the waves of the southern oceans in search of productive upwellings. Although frail-looking, they thrive in a part of the globe renown for strong winds. Until they encounter land…

: Fig. 4. A flock of Antarctic prions near South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean. Photo: Colin Miskelly. Copyright Colin Miskelly.

Prions move with the wind, using the varying airspeeds on the windward and leeward sides of waves to fly long distances with great energetic efficiency. There are few land masses in the southern ocean, and it is usually easy for flocks of prions to slide around the few obstacles that present. Except, that is, for the 1500 km coast of New Zealand. For ten consecutive days in July 2011, persistent westerly gales in the Tasman Sea pushed prions against New Zealand’s western shores. To start with, the birds moved effortlessly with the wind. Then as land loomed, they started to fight the wind, trying to stay offshore. But the relentless gale continued, consuming the birds’ energy until they were exhausted and driven ashore in tens of thousands.

Although there is a long history of prion wrecks on New Zealand beaches, the scale of the 2011 wreck is unprecedented. Far more prions have been killed in this single event than the 37-year total recorded by the OSNZ. Details are still being collected and collated, but large numbers have been found from at least Dargaville to Okarito, 900 km apart. In places they have stranded at rates over 400 birds per kilometre of coast. And that ignores the birds blown inland.

Even more alarming is that nearly all the birds are broad-billed prions (91% estimated), a locally-breeding species. The two previous largest wrecks of broad-billed prions were between 1100 and 1400 birds. It will be difficult to estimate the full extent of the 2011 wreck, but it is likely to be up to 250 times larger than either the 1961 or 1974 events.

: Fig. 5. Beach-wrecked broad-billed prions, Paekakariki (Wellington west coast), 16 July 2011. Photo: Colin Miskelly. Copyright Te Papa.

Desperate efforts are being made to save some of the birds, including a combined total of over 1000 being hand-fed at Wellington Zoo and Massey University. As the birds are exhausted and emaciated from their struggle against the gale, it is terribly difficult to revive them, and hundreds of those delivered have since died.

: Fig. 6. A rescued broad-billed prion being fed at Wellington Zoo. Photo: Colin Miskelly. Copyright Te Papa.

The 2011 prion wreck will have wreaked a terrible toll on the New Zealand broad-billed prion population. The species also occurs in the South Atlantic, but the birds in New Zealand waters are thought to come from the breeding populations on the Chatham Islands, Snares Islands, and islands around Stewart Island and off the Fiordland coast. Apart from the 330,000 pairs estimated on Rangatira Island in the Chatham Islands, none of these other populations are thought to number more than a few thousand pairs. The total New Zealand population is likely to be little more than a million birds, and so the tragic deaths of (probably) several hundred thousand of them will have a huge impact, especially if the birds in the Tasman Sea were mainly from the less numerous southern (non-Chatham) populations.

: Fig. 7. The calm before the storm – healthy broad-billed prions on Kundy Island, off Stewart Island, March 2011. Photo: Colin Miskelly. Copyright Te Papa.

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

11 July 2011 – 4.54pm

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the fourth 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 accompanied Department of Conservation staff to Peka Peka Beach on the morning of 21 June, and identified the bird just before the first journalists and media photographers arrived. He is also a member of the committee advising on the care and rehabilitation of the bird, and told the first three parts of its story in Te Papa blogs posted on 23 June, 29 June and 6 July.

Fig. 1 The emperor penguin on Peka Peka Beach, 21 June 2011. Photo: Richard Gill, DOC

The Peka Peka emperor penguin has been under veterinary care at Wellington Zoo for over two weeks now, and most of the sand is out of his system. He is eating about 2 kg of donated salmon a day, and will be converting some of this into a layer of fat lying just under his skin. This is where penguins store fat to tide them over their long periods of fasting while ashore, for example while incubating, or during their annual moult.

Maintaining a thick fat layer while at sea is also important. Not only does it provide insulation against cold water, it improves hydrodynamic streamlining, and is an insurance against poor foraging conditions.

The emperor penguin was in surprisingly good condition when he stepped ashore. Many vagrant birds that stray beyond their typical range and habitats find it difficult to find food, and become emaciated. When he arrived, the Peka Peka penguin was towards the lower end of a healthy adult weight, but he apparently lost further weight and condition before he was delivered to Wellington Zoo 4 days later.

It is intended to build his weight up by several kilos before release, to improve his chances of surviving any patches of low food availability on his (hoped for) swim south. As mentioned in a previous blog, adult male emperor penguins go without food for up to four months at the start of the breeding season, dropping from an average of 38 kg to 23 kg in the progress. Young emperor penguins (like the Peka Peka bird) do not get anywhere near so big, as they do not need to endure such long fasts while at sea. Most subadults weigh between 25 and 30 kg.

Fig. 2 A healthy adult emperor penguin, Terre Adélie, Antarctica. Photo: Dominique Filippi

There will be great interest in tracking the penguin’s location and direction of movement after release, and we have the technology to do just that. A New Zealand technology company Sirtrack has built and donated a satellite transmitter that will be glued to feathers on the penguin’s lower back. The device is 87 mm long, streamlined, and weighs only 95 grams (about 0.4 % of the bird’s current weight). Similar (and in some cases, identical) devices have been used previously to track adult and juvenile emperor penguins from the Antarctic continent. As reported in previous blogs, this has shown that young emperor penguins swim into the Southern Ocean more than 1000 km north of the pack-ice that surrounds Antarctica. The release of the Peka Peka penguin will be the first time that a satellite transmitter has been attached to an emperor penguin released at sea.

Fig. 3 Sirtrack satellite transmitter model K2G 271A ready to be attached. Image: Sirtrack

The transmitter has been registered with the Argos satellite system, and given a unique identifier code. Argos satellites are positioned about 850 km above the earth’s surface, and orbit the planet on a pole-to-pole orbit about every 100 minutes. As a satellite passes overhead, it picks up signals from transmitters within a swath about 5000 km wide. Due to rotation of the earth, the swath moves westwards with each pass, with successive swaths overlapping about 44% at the equator (and 100% at the poles).

Fig. 4 Swath width of an Argos satellite. Image from Argos Users Manual, www.argos-system.org

Fig. 4 Swath width of an Argos satellite. Image from Argos Users Manual, http://www.argos-system.org

The transmitter has been programmed to transmit a signal (or ‘ping’) every 45 seconds during two time periods each day (6 – 9 am and 8 pm – midnight) matching peak periods of satellite passes in the seas south of New Zealand. Whether or not a signal is picked up from the penguin will depend on whether the bird is floating or swimming at the sea surface during the approximately 10 minutes that it takes the satellite to pass overhead. The satellite must detect at least four pings per pass to get an accurate fix. It will not detect a signal when the penguin is foraging (deep diving), and is unlikely to do so when the penguin is swimming rapidly, and surfacing briefly for quick breaths. There is no guarantee that enough of the signals will get picked up on every pass of the satellite, and so there are likely to be days when no locations are detected.

The Argos system calculates locations by measuring the frequency of the signal; the received frequency changes as the satellite moves in relation to the transmitter (Doppler effect). The data are transmitted to a ground station, and then posted to a website accessible via a password.

One of the benefits of the Argos system is that requires only a single satellite to get a fix on the transmitter, unlike the three or more satellites required for GPS triangulation. A downside is that the satellite cannot determine if the transmitter is to its left or right, and gives two ‘mirror’ fixes to either side of its path. As penguins are capable of swimming only tens of kilometres per day, it should be obvious which of the two fixes is the correct one.

Fig. 5 Diagram showing how an Argos satellite records two ‘mirror’ locations for each transmitter, based on the frequencies of signals received. Image from Argos Users Manual, http://www.argos-system.org

This is a commercial system: users have to register their transmitters to receive a password, and pay a daily or monthly fee to receive the transmitted data. We are fortunate that Gareth Morgan KiwiSaver has agreed to sponsor the data downloads. Sirtrack will prepare maps of the penguin’s location and its movement track, and these will be posted on both the Sirtrack and Our Far South websites. I will provide precise webpage links in a blog about the time that the penguin is released.

In addition to the satellite tag, the penguin will also have a small microchip (24 mm long) inserted under its skin. This is the same method as used for dogs in New Zealand. This will mean that if the bird ever returns to the New Zealand coast, or arrives at a monitored penguin colony, we will know its identity.

Fig. 6 The microchip likely to be inserted under the penguin’s skin before release. Scale bar in millimetres. Photo: Te Papa

Other websites referred to:

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

For later blogs on this bird:

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

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

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

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 (13)

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

6 July 2011 – 12.58pm

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the third 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 accompanied Department of Conservation staff to Peka Peka Beach on the morning of 21 June, and identified the bird just before the first journalists and media photographers arrived. He is also a member of the committee advising on the care and rehabilitation of the bird, and told the first two parts of its story in Te Papa blogs posted on 23 June and 29 June.

Wayward boy – the emperor penguin on Peka Peka Beach, 21 June. Photo: Colin Miskelly

Some momentous news – it’s a boy! DNA tests of feathers collected from the Peka Peka emperor penguin have revealed that it is a male. Apart from the obvious (“No wonder he got lost – he wouldn’t stop to ask directions” quip), what does this tell us about why he wandered so far north?

In most seabirds, it is the females that are more adventurous, at least in terms of where they settle to breed compared to where they were raised – males are the stay-at-home sex. But that is in relation only to breeding sites. Many seabird species are highly migratory, in some cases travelling tens of thousands of kilometres between breeding seasons; and there is no consistent pattern for one sex to travel further than the other during these migrations.

Emperor penguins contemplating whether they could incubate eggs and raise chicks at sea. Photo: Barbara Wienecke

Penguins are seabirds in the strictest sense. Many species come ashore only to breed (they haven’t yet figured out how to incubate a floating egg!) and then shortly afterwards return ashore for their annual moult, during which they lose their water-proofing for 2-3 weeks. Were it not for these earthly constraints, most penguins would spend their lives all at sea. And, with a few exceptions (and their annual moult), that is what juvenile penguins do.

Studying the at-sea distribution of young penguins presents many technical challenges. Australian and US-based researchers have attempted to study dispersal of emperor penguin chicks on their maiden journeys from their colonies, by glueing satellite transmitters to their lower backs. These transmitters emit signals, and if the bird happens to be on the sea surface or on an ice-floe when a satellite passes over, the location of the bird is ‘fixed’, and sent to the researcher via a webpage or an email.

Emperor penguin chick fitted with satellite transmitter. Photo: Barbara Wienecke

These studies revealed that the young penguins leave the colonies in late December, and head north, beyond the pack-ice, into open ocean. By February-March they had reached up to 54° south (based on a combined sample of 33 birds), up to 1200 km north of the pack-ice. Then they turned south, and were back among the pack when their transmitter batteries failed 5-6 months after fledging.

We do not know in any detail where emperor penguins spend the next 4.5 years of their lives. The transmitters drop off when the birds moult about a year after they first go to sea. It is has long been assumed that emperor penguins stay in ice-congested waters during adolescence, where individuals are often seen. But penguins standing on ice-floes are a lot easier to see than penguins swimming in stormy Southern Ocean seas. Studying emperor penguins of this age group in any detail is almost impossible, because they don’t come ashore or onto fast-ice, so they cannot be readily caught to have satellite tags attached.

Emperor penguins swimming among pack-ice. Photo: Colin Miskelly

Occasional emperor penguins turn up further north, even as far as 41° south (i.e. Peka Peka Beach – the northernmost record known). As this was considered a natural event, the northern edge of emperor penguin distribution lies somewhere between 41° and 54° south – a trifling distance of 1500 kilometres!

So where should the Peka Peka penguin be released?

As just mentioned, the penguin’s arrival at Peka Peka is considered a natural event. If we were to adopt a minimal intervention approach, we would return the bird to the point where he arrived in good health 2 weeks ago. But Peka Peka is a dangerous place – there is sand everywhere, and we now know that emperor penguins and sand are not a good combination.

If we were to bow completely to Happy Feet sentimentality, the bird would be whisked south into the midst of the pack-ice, regardless of cost, logistic difficulties in the middle of the Antarctic winter, disease risks to other emperor penguins, discomfort to the bird, and whether or not he wanted to go south.

This bird swam north of its own volition. Do we have the right to tell it that it was wrong to do so? To follow this argument further, should we start returning all vagrant birds to their country of origin?

But then we mustn’t forget that penguins are almost human. Apart, that is, from feathers, and a propensity for eating sand. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of judging ordinary birds by the standards applied to penguins.

The Penguin Advisory Committee was unanimous in agreeing that the penguin be released into waters south of New Zealand. But that could be anywhere between 47° and 54° south – allowing 780 km of robust discussion!

Apart from the ethical question of whether we have the right to force our will over that of a voiceless penguin, other complications arise the further south we look. Firstly, a suitable boat needs to be found, preferably one that can take a large media contingent (at no cost to them). Large boats are very expensive, but are still uncomfortable in rough seas. Smaller boats may be more affordable, but there is less room for media, and they are no fun at all in rough seas – for people or penguins. We don’t know how susceptible emperor penguins are to motion sickness, and the eventual release site may yet be dictated by the bird’s immediate welfare rather than our wish to take it ever south in stormy subantarctic seas.

Wandering albatross over subantarctic seas. Photo: Colin Miskelly

But when he takes that eventful plunge off the heaving deck into the welcoming sea, the world will be watching. Not only will at least one film crew have braved the ride, but the penguin will be carrying a satellite transmitter that will let you plot its daily progress from the comfort of your smart phone.

I had said that I would give you details of how to do so here, but have run out of words. Next blog, I promise. But in the meantime, you can check the online security cam to see if he is attempting to bust out of his cell at Wellington Zoo:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/3NewsLiveStream/HappyFeetlivestream.aspx

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

For later blogs on this bird:

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 7. The wandering emperor penguin enters the technological age

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

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

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

Posted in Biodiversity, Birds, Penguins | Tagged Antarctica, baby penguin, Emperor penguin, Happy Feet | Comments (17)

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

29 June 2011 – 5.20pm

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the second 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 accompanied Department of Conservation staff to Peka Peka Beach on the morning of 21 June, and identified the bird just before the first journalists and media photographers arrived. He told the first part of the story in a Te Papa blog posted on 23 June.

The healthy young emperor penguin on Peka Peka Beach, 21 June. (Richard Gill, DOC)

To recap the story so far. New Zealand’s second ever emperor penguin came ashore on the west coast north of Wellington late in the day on Monday 20 June. The bird was a juvenile, estimated from plumage coloration to be 2.5 or 3.5 years old. Under the guidance of the Department of Conservation, Peka Peka residents set up a roster of round-the-clock minders, ensuring that people kept a respectful distance, and that there was no chance of the bird being attacked by roving dogs. When we left the penguin, and the story, on 23 June, the bird was still on the beach in healthy condition, and was attracting the rapturous attention of the local community, bird-watchers from throughout New Zealand, and the world’s media. It had become, without doubt, the most famous penguin on the planet.

"You've all come to see me!" The admiring throng on 24 June. (Colin Miskelly, Te Papa)

Why was the penguin ashore on Peka Peka Beach, and how did it get there? Young emperor penguins spend the first 5 years of their lives at sea, away from the Antarctic shoreline. Most live among the pack-ice, but satellite-tracking studies have revealed that some birds travel much further north, into the open Southern Ocean, well away from ice.

With a world population of up to 400,000 emperor penguins, it is not surprising that the occasional bird pushes the limits and ends up beyond their normal range. Birds of many species are renown for turning up in unusual localities; this feature of their biology delights bird-watchers everywhere – you never know what might turn up next!

Most emperor penguins stay close to floating ice, meaning that they have the opportunity to climb (or jump) out of the sea to have a rest or escape from predators. Those birds that swim further north forego this option. Like most other penguin species, they stay in the water for weeks or months on end. We presume that the Peka Peka penguin came ashore for a rest. It was plump, in good condition, and would have been capable of surviving for days or weeks without feeding, as emperor penguins do throughout their lives (see previous blog). Its arrival was a natural event, and there was no reason to intervene while the bird remained in good health.

"That feels better!" The emperor penguin cools down at Wellington Zoo. (Colin Miskelly, Te Papa)

The news on the morning of 24 June was not good. The penguin had been seen swallowing bits of driftwood as well as sand, and its condition had deteriorated from the previous evening. It is thought that the bird ate sand as it mistook it for snow or ice, and that it was attempting to drink or cool down, but no explanation has been offered for why it swallowed other objects from the tide-wrack.

The emperor penguin on the operating table at Wellington Zoo, 27 June (Alan Tennyson, Te Papa)

I returned to the beach with Department of Conservation staff later that morning. After viewing the bird and discussing its condition with wildlife veterinarians from Massey University and Wellington Zoo, we agreed that the bird should be taken into care, at least until sand and other foreign matter had been removed or passed from its gut. We improvised a refrigerated crate (a large plastic bin part-filled with two dozen bags of party ice), and loaded the penguin into the back of a utility truck for the 45 minute drive to Wellington Zoo.

Composite x-ray showing sand inside the penguins gut on 24 June - a pear-shaped lump in its stomach, and a sausage-shaped lump in its oesophagus. (original images from Wellington Zoo)

This was the first time that the penguin had been handled, which allowed it to be weighed (a healthy 23.1 kg – after 0.5 kg of sand was removed!) and a feather sample to be collected for DNA-sexing (no results received as of 29 June). As part of the initial health check, the bird was anaesthetised and x-rayed, revealing a large mass of sand in its throat and stomach. Most of the sand in its throat was flushed out that first day, but the mass lower in its stomach was harder to budge, requiring further stomach-flushing and endoscopy over the next 3 days.
The penguin is literally being ‘kept on ice’ at the zoo, in a small air-conditioned room. It will remain there until its gut is clear of sand, and it has regained enough condition for its next adventure.

I was invited back to Wellington Zoo on 29 June as part of a Department of Conservation, Wellington Zoo, Massey University and Te Papa advisory group to discuss the ongoing care and rehabilitation of the young emperor penguin. All agreed that the first priority was to get the bird back to good health, and that it should be returned to the wild as soon as practicable – preferably a long way from any sand.

As the bird had swum north of its own accord, and the natural range of young emperor penguins is the Southern Ocean, we agreed that the best course of action was to return it to the sea somewhere south-east of mainland New Zealand. From there its movements will be tracked using a satellite transmitter generously sponsored by manufacturers Sirtrack, and Gareth Morgan KiwiSaver.

Other options considered included trying to take the bird back to Antarctica. This was ruled out for several reasons, including: (a) that at this time of year it is impossible to get to and is too far south for a juvenile emperor penguin; (b) this bird naturally wandered to the northern edge of the emperor penguin distribution, and we would be wrong to artificially over-ride its own behaviour and inclinations; and (c) on its way north, the bird may have picked up new disease organisms or parasites from any one of up to nine species of penguins that emperor penguins don’t usually meet (namely king, gentoo, royal, rockhopper, yellow-eyed, erect-crested, Snares crested, Fiordland crested, and little penguins), and it would be foolhardy to deliberately place it back within the core distribution of several hundred thousand healthy emperor penguins.

In the next blog, I’ll give an update on the emperor penguin’s rehabilitation, and details of how you can track its progress online if and when it is returned to the wild.

Previous blog on this bird:

For later blogs on this bird:

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 7. The wandering emperor penguin enters the technological age

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

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

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

Posted in Birds, Penguins | Tagged Department of Conservation, Emperor penguin, Peka Peka, Zoo | Comments (17)

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

23 June 2011 – 4.36pm

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the first 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 and the emperor penguin face the media. Photo: Alan Tennyson (Te Papa)

An ordinary Tuesday morning. Logged on to the Te Papa server, downloading emails, waiting for the first caffeine jolt of the day to kick in. And then a Department of Conservation colleague rang “What do you know about identifying large penguins?” This was my introduction to the surreal story of the emperor penguin of Peka Peka Beach – a tale that continues to build media momentum as I type.

“Weirdest seal I ever saw”. One of many new experiences for the penguin. Photo: Colin Miskelly (Te Papa)

Emperor penguins are superlative birds on so many counts: the largest penguin, the deepest diving (to 550 m or 1800 ft), the only bird that doesn’t breed on land (they breed on ice), the only bird that stays to endure the most severe winter conditions on the planet…it is no wonder that they capture the imagination. It was over 20 years since I last saw emperor penguins (Prydz Bay, Antarctica), and it was an almost unbelievable experience to see one so close to home.

On the shortest day of the southern calendar, adult male emperor penguins should be huddled together in the middle of the long Antarctic winter night, each incubating the single egg that will produce the next generation. But where are the younger birds? Hold that thought.

The males will not leave the egg for a solid 2 months. When you add on the time it takes to court their mate and to get from and to the distant sea, this equates to close to 4 months without a bite to eat. That is one serious, body-wasting diet. The males lose over 40% of their body weight, dropping from a colossal 38 kg (89 lbs) to a svelte 23 kg (50 lbs). After laying, the females return to sea (after about 40 days of fasting) to fatten up in time to return to feed the newly-hatched chick. In the Ross Sea (south of New Zealand), the eggs hatch mainly in August. The parents then both feed the chick for another four months until it is ready to go to sea. After eight stressful months it is time for the adults to fatten up again for the next hurdle – getting through their annual moult. Like all penguins, emperor penguins shed all their feathers in one go once a year, staying ashore for 30-40 days until their new coat is sleek and waterproof again.

By the time the breeding birds have completed their moult, they have only a couple of months to spare before it is time to return to the breeding colony for the next breeding season. This leaves little time to wander far from the Antarctic coastline.

The young birds have more freedom to explore. They go to sea at the height of the Antarctic summer (December-January), and do not need to return to the colony until they are about 4 years old. During this time they typically stay among the pack ice – the floating fringe of the Antarctic continent – learning to catch fish, squid and krill, trying to avoid leopard seals and killer whales, and hauling out on ice floes whenever they are tired or it is time to moult. This is the natural world of the emperor penguin – an ever changing vista of white ice and blue-grey sea, with the water at a constant temperature just above freezing.

And ice-fields, by and large, are where the young emperor penguins stay. But not all of them. Very rarely, the occasional bird ventures north. Two have reached Macquarie Island (1100 km south-west of mainland New Zealand), and once, a very long time ago, one came ashore near Invercargill, New Zealand’s southernmost city.

“Which way is south?”. Photo: Colin Miskelly (Te Papa)

Oreti Beach 1967. World famous in New Zealand as the training ground for the world’s fastest Indian (Burt Monro broke flying half-mile records here between 1957 & 1971). In the midst of this, in an era long before cell phones, internet, email, txting, facebook and tweeting, an emperor penguin stepped ashore, and barely made a ripple.

Forty-four years later, another came ashore, 800 km to the north-east, literally and figuratively waddling into new territory for a penguin. Not only was it within a 45 min drive from New Zealand’s capital city (Wellington), but within 48 hours of discovery, this penguin was known about by millions, its story running on at least 920 media sites globally.

The Peka Peka emperor penguin is about 3.5 years old. When I saw it on the morning of 21 June it appeared uninjured, and it had good fat reserves. It was clearly confused by its strange sandy environment. While not fazed by people (as long as they kept a respectful 5 metre distance), it was startled by a horse and rider passing 20 metres away. And when it got thirsty, it tried to swallow wet sand, no doubt expecting it to melt like snow.

We do not know how long it is since this penguin last saw an iceberg, about 2200 km to the south. We don’t know how long it will stay, or where it will go next. In the meantime it is being kept under the watchful eye of the Department of Conservation and Peka Peka community members. It was still there on the morning of 23 June, with an ever-growing throng of admirers.

In the next blog, I’ll provide an update on the penguin’s whereabouts and welfare, and explore some of the management options for this role-reversed Antarctic explorer. Including explaining why it is not a good idea to try to take it ‘home’.

For later blogs on this bird:

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 7. The wandering emperor penguin enters the technological age

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

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