Baby Penguin Joins The Flock

A baby penguin has joined an endangered colony of birds at the African penguin exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, science museum officials said this week. The male chick is the first to hatch since the Academy reopened in 2008. He was born on Jan. 28 to father Robben and mother Ty. The two penguins were bred to maintain the species, which is facing extinction in the wild. The African penguin exhibit now boasts a colony of 16 birds. The baby penguin was living with his parents in a private nest out of public view until Wednesday when he joined the other birds.The museum is holding an online naming contest through April 30.

The top three names chosen by Academy staff for their originality and reflection of the museum’s mission to sustain wildlife will be put to a public vote. The winning name will be announced during a naming ceremony on May 16 at the museum. The contestant who submits the chosen name will be part of the ceremony and also earn a behind-the-scenes tour of the penguin colony, tickets to a museum sleepover event, plus a plush penguin toy. The new chick can be viewed at the exhibit through the online Penguin Cam at http://www.calacademy.org/webcams/penguins/.

Penguin Chicks In Georiga

Everyone knows that African penguin chicks may be the most huggable bird in creation. Their portly profiles and soft juvenile feathers give them the look of over-sized Beanie Babies. And if they seem to cry out for cuddling, it is Jennifer Odell’s job to cuddle them, to get them accustomed to contact with people.

“It’s helpful for the bird to be less sensitive to human interactions, so that it’s relaxed during veterinary exams,” said Odell, associate curator of mammals and birds at the Georgia Aquarium, as she plopped a seven-pound living plush toy into her lap. Cuddling penguin chicks has its down side. The object of Odell’s attention, named B1 (the chicks don’t get real names until the staff can determine their sex), and its three creche-mates, B2, B3 and B4, were shedding their gray downy feathers, making Odell and her colleagues look like lint-flecked mill workers.

There was also the occasional deposit of penguin guano to avoid. (With a penguin in your lap, sometimes the guano is unavoidable.) Despite those drawbacks, Odell’s team, which has been tending to the new chicks around the clock, had the exhausted but happy look of new parents. Hatched in January, these penguin youngsters are the second crop of chicks born at the aquarium and are the result of a concerted effort to expand the aquarium’s brood of 45 African penguins. That work began in 2010, with the redesign of the penguin exhibit to closely mimic the birds’ natural habitat.

In particular, the lighting of the exhibit was crafted to match the natural light of South Africa. Technicians created a palette of illumination that shifts in color and intensity throughout the day and through the seasons, waxing and waning from pink to blue tones, and from bright to soft, to generate the same lighting cues that trigger breeding cycles in the wild. The effort has been successful, as aquarium personnel demonstrated recently, leading the AJC on an exclusive visit with the new babies.

African penguins come from the southwestern coast of the continent, from Namibia to South Africa, and from that area’s coastal islands, where the weather is comparable to that of the California coast. The species numbered 3 million in the early 1900s, but has dwindled to about 80,000 — mostly from loss of habitat and from diminishing food sources — and is listed as endangered.

The South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), based near Cape Town, South Africa, works to rehabilitate abandoned and orphaned penguin chicks and rescues those that have become saturated with oil from nearby refineries. The Georgia Aquarium helps support that mission, with monetary and in-kind donations. Odell and animal training specialist Erin Morlang traveled to South Africa in November to help hand-feed and raise a creche of 130 chicks at SANCCOB. Because they already were skilled at feeding seafood smoothies to infant penguins, their help was particularly valuable.

While they were in South Africa the two aquarium workers also helped release six penguins back into the wild. No penguins from Atlanta’s collection will go back to the waters off South Africa — they could accidentally introduce a Western microbe that would be dangerous to the population there. But the genetic diversity of Atlanta’s new generation of penguins will be valuable to the 600 or so penguins currently in human care, according to William Hurley, the aquarium’s senior vice president of zoological operations. Currently these youngsters are spectacularly uncoordinated. They spend much of their time flat on their beaks, after tripping over their own feet.

They also have yet to demonstrate their natural grace underwater. Soon their permanent feathers will grow in, giving them the distinct black-and-white tuxedo look of other adults. They should grow to about two feet in height and about 7 to 11 pounds in weight. “Once they are fully fledged, they will float like corks,” said Dennis Christen, director of animal training, “but they can’t swim until then.”

The penguin chicks will remain off-exhibit until they mature and are ready to join the adults in the collection, said Hurley.

Caring for penguin chicks at the Georgia Aquarium is the local part of an international effort by the aquarium to help conservation efforts in South Africa, where the Georgia folks support an initiative to rescue orphaned, abandoned and oiled penguins.

Penguin Chicks In Snowy New England

Two adorable African penguin chicks have hatched at Sea Research Foundation’s Mystic Aquarium. Hatched Feb. 1 and Feb. 10, the chicks weigh 696 grams and 281 grams, respectively. The chicks will be named when they are fully fledged and their gender will be determined by a DNA test at 6 months old.The chicks can be seen on the Mystic Aquarium website’s live African penguin webcam. The live webcam provides the unique opportunity to watch the chicks develop into full fledgling penguins. Viewers can meet the trainers, get up-close views of the chicks, hear firsthand about their progress, and get a behind-the-scenes look at the Roger Tory Peterson Penguin Pavilion. Penguin fans can also get weekly video updates and submit questions to penguin trainers via Mystic Aquarium’s Facebook page.  In Mystic Aquarium’s “Weekly Bird Bit” videos, penguin trainers share insights on the chicks’ development and milestones, as well as answer two or three of viewers’ most interesting or commonly-asked questions. During the chicks’ first 40 days, the little ones are unable to maintain th

African Penguin Chick at Mystic Aquarium

eir body heat, so they seek warmth under their parents. Viewers will see their heads and beaks emerge when they are hungry and when their parents feed them. Later, the chicks will slowly venture on their own into other areas of their room. Once they are weaned, around day 50, people can observe the aquarium’s trainers teaching the chicks to feed from them. At 75 to 100 days of age, the chicks will be fully fledged. Their soft down will be replaced with juvenile plumage, and they will be ready to fend for themselves and join the 26 adult African penguins on exhibit at the aquarium. Mystic Aquarium participates in the Species Survival Plan, a collaborative breeding program through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The African penguin is an endangered species.

Endangered African Penguins Oiled Again

The Penguin Post is distressed to learn that endangered African penguins from the Robben Island colony in South Africa are still being oiled on a daily basis. The bird conservation body Sanccob’s rehabilitation center in Table View has taken on oiled penguins every day this week after a storm last weekend caused part of the Seli 1 wreck to split apart and spill oil into Table Bay. This comes as the city’s clean-up efforts at Dolphin and Rietvlei beaches are drawing to an end. On Wednesday, a South African Department of Environmental Affairs aircraft surveyed the area of the ocean where the penguins hunt, but it could not identify any oil slicks that may be contributing to the pollution of the birds. “We have only identified a slick in the vicinity of the wreck itself. Currently there is a ‘light sheen’ leaking from the wreck – thin oil which dissipates easily – this tells us that the spill is nearing its end… but with this particular wreck you can’t ever be too sure,” said Feroza Albertus-Stanley, environmental director for the department. On Thursday the rehabilitation center took on another 50 penguins, bringing the number of penguins saved to 113. This figure includes 11 chicks which were removed from their nests to avoid them starving to death. Conservationists believed that their parents had been oiled and were unable to care for them. The cost for the rehabilitation was mounting, said Venessa Strauss, Sanccob’s CEO. “It costs R500 to rehabilitate an oiled penguin and R1 500 (about $200) to rehabilitate a chick,” she said. She appealed to people to donate or adopt a penguin. Strauss suspects that another ship may be dumping oil illegally, because it is easy to do so without being caught when there is an existing oil spill in the area.Meanwhile, the National Department of Transport has committed to removing the Seli 1 wreck. “The department views the removal of the Seli 1 in a serious light and the matter is receiving the necessary attention. To this end, the department has approached national Treasury for financial assistance and the matter is being considered,” said Sam Monareng, a spokesman for the department. “The navy will assist in the carrying out of a thorough scan of the wreck and together with the salvage company, a detailed plan will be developed,” Monareng said.

An oiled African Penguin being washed.

Penguin Find Unlikely Roommates. Sharks.

The Penguin Post has learned that a group of African penguins that live on an indoor beach in California have “welcomed” some toothy new neighbors this week: six striped pyjama sharks.

On Tuesday, aquarium biologists at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco introduced the nocturnal sharks (four females and two males) to their neighbors in nature, as both species live in the wild off the South African coast.   The 2-year-old pyjama sharks, which the biologists say are docile and mild-mannered, are expected to spend much of their time in the exhibit’s man-made underwater caves; since the two species rub shoulders in the wild, they should pose no threat to each other.

“During yesterday’s event, the sharks were let into the tank two at a time, which piqued the interest of the penguins,” biologists at the California Academy told the Post, in an email. “The penguins reacted with curiosity, some diving into the water to get a closer look at and feel for their new neighbors. Overall, the penguins reacted quite positively.” As for the sharks, they swam up to the tank’s glass as if posing for photos, before retreating to their cave homes, the biologists added. The African penguin exhibit is modeled after Boulders Beach in South Africa, where the penguins and sharks are found in the wild. The sharks were born at an aquarium in Lisbon, Portugal, in July 2010 before being transported to the Steinhart Aquarium at the Academy a few months ago. So that biologists can monitor the sharks’ feeding, they are using tactics to attract the typically nighttime bottom feeders to the surface for meal times. When hatched, these sharks measure about 5.5 to 5.9 inches in length, growing to about 39 inches as adults. The Academy’s newcomers were about 16 inches long when they arrived at the aquarium. Their aquarium mates, African penguins grow to about 23 to 25 inches tall and can weight 5 to 9 pounds.

More Penguins In Pittsburgh

Move over Pittsburgh Penguins players – even with the playoffs just around the corner there are some new penguins snatching some attention in Pittsburgh. The National Aviary in Pittsburgh recently welcomed two African penguin chicks that were the first to hatch at the aviary in late February.  The aviary held a celebration called the “Hatch Party” for the chicks last Friday where the chicks made their first public appearance and guests were able to participate in different penguin-friendly activities. The chicks are the offspring of Sidney and Bette, two of the 12 penguins that live in the aviary’s Penguin Point exhibit. Tribby, who was named after Penguin Point exhibit sponsor Trib Total Media, hatched Feb. 26. The other chick, whose name is being auctioned to the public, hatched Feb. 29. Guests who came to celebrate the birth of the penguins at the Hatch Party were able to meet the two chicks and learn different facts about the species of the bird, as well as participate in games and other activities. Among those activities was a live penguin painting done by one of the 12 fully-grown penguins. Attendees were also able to bid on another painting done by the penguins and a signed Sidney Crosby jersey. During the Hatch Party, many of the aviary personnel walked around and shared facts about the species. Steve Sarro, director of Animal Collections at the National Aviary, was in attendance and informed the guests about the penguins and new chicks. Sarro explained that the chicks were raised by their mother and father for about three weeks and are now being hand-raised by the expert penguin trainers on staff until the end of the summer. “We want the chicks to understand that we are caretakers and food givers to them, and that they should not be scared of us,” Sarro said at the Hatch Party on Friday. Sarro said that at birth the chicks weighed a little below 2 ounces and now weigh about 3.5 to 4 pounds. Once fully grown, the chicks will weigh about 6 to 8 pounds. Although they will grow rapidly to the adult stage, the chicks will still find some difficulty once they join the rest of the penguin colony in the exhibit, but in the meantime they are being kept company by some penguin chick stuffed animals from Penguin Place. “The chicks will be the low man on the totem pole for a while,” Sarro said. “They will learn their place in the hierarchy real quick.” Another aviary employee who enlightened guests was Maria Fusco, a senior biology major at Point Park University.Fusco is an intern at the National Aviary and has interned there since the fall semester. Fusco said the aviary has had an air of excitement around it since the chicks hatched. She said there was no official announcement to the employees about the chicks hatching, but word quickly spread to everyone, and the excitement began. Fusco hopes that the word will spread as quickly to the public and that there will be an increase in attendance to come see the chicks. “Now is a really great time to come to the aviary,” Fusco said at the Hatch Party on Friday. “It’s a unique opportunity to see birds, like the new penguin chicks, that aren’t even native to this country … you don’t have to travel across the world to see them.” The aviary staff may have been excited to see the chicks, but the excitement was not limited to them. One of the guests, Chelsea Prior, 27, was a first-time guest to the National Aviary but has always been a penguin lover. “I have always been interested in the National Aviary,” Prior said at the Hatch Party on Friday. “I always wanted to come, and this event gave me a chance to see when it’s less crowded than usual.” Prior was enthusiastic about seeing the chicks and other birds for the first time and expects to come back to visit the aviary often. “I totally want to come more to watch the penguin chicks grow,” Prior said. “I am a part of Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and I plan on bringing my sister to see them.” Another guest, Kira Walters, 30, who came with Prior to the event also wants to watch the penguins as they continue to take steps in maturing from their newborn stage. “I think it’s interesting that they act like little human babies with how clumsy and wobbly they are,” Walters said at the Hatch Party on Friday. The public can now see the new African penguin chicks daily at the National Aviary. For more information, visit http://www.aviary.org/.

Penguin Chick (right) with penguin plush from yours truly.

Newest Pittsburgh Penguin

There’s a new Pittsburgh Penguin, but it’s not what you think.  This little guy is a baby African penguin and his tiny black eyelids grew heavy after downing his 11th smelt. Big brother Tribby managed to gulp down 16 of the small fish before he, too, conked out in his handler’s lap. “Oh, yeah, he’s out,” said Chris Gaus, lead penguin trainer at the National Aviary in the North Side, as Tribby’s head fell on his chest. “All right, buddy. Back to bed.” The aviary welcomed two new family members: a pair of African penguins hatched here last month. Tribune Total Media, which sponsors the aviary’s Penguin Point exhibition, won naming rights for Tribby, hatched Feb. 26. The second, unnamed chick emerged from his egg on Feb. 29; aviary staff for now call him Little Guy. The first penguin chicks to hatch at the aviary, they already show personality, said Steve Sarro, director of animal programs. “They’re both a little feisty — a little attitude, and very inquisitive,” Sarro said. “Tribby is very calm. The second one is a little bit younger, and he’s just trying to figure out what’s going on.” Tribby and Little Guy spent three weeks with mom, Bette, and dad, Sidney, named for, you guessed it, Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby. The babies live in a cooling incubator in Sarro’s office, where staff members hand-feed them three times a day. “It’s always a blast hand-raising chicks,” Sarro said. “We have them sit on our laps; we have people come over and interact with them. That helps them (learn) their job in education, to be an ambassador for the wild.” The global wild breeding penguin population has dwindled to fewer than 50,000, down from about 1 million less than a century ago, Sarro said. The birds are considered an endangered species. Several factors are killing penguins, including oil pollution, commercial over-fishing, human disturbance and climate change, Sarro said. Some researchers predict that unless changes occur, wild penguins will die off completely in 15 years, he said. “We’re very good at breeding them in captivity,” Sarro said. “But they should be in the wild.” Trib Total Media’s chief operating officer, Jennifer Bertetto, an aviary board member, said the company wanted to get involved with Penguin Point — and with Tribby — because it believes in the aviary’s message of “conservation and education.” People can see the newborns for the first time on Friday night during a ticketed event at the aviary. Starting March 31, they will appear at Penguin Point twice daily, at 11 a.m and 2:30 p.m. They’ll enter the exhibit permanently at the end of summer. The chicks weigh about 2 pounds each, and likely will triple or quadruple that weight. They’re still a bit unsteady. Adults stand on their legs and tuck their wings into their sides, but Tribby and Little Guy can manage only brief waddling before collapsing onto crumpled wings.

Historic Penguin Hatchling Of The North

The Penguin Post has learned that Toronto Zoo officials are hailing their African penguin-breeding program a success after announcing the birth of the zoo’s first chick. The zoo announced Friday that the chick hatched Jan. 28 and has been raised by the staff after the parents, Gozi and Puff, rejected the egg as it was hatching. Ellie or Eldon — depending on the gender of the chick, which will be determined with a blood test in a few months — can be observed by the public at various times throughout the day, beginning Saturday. The survival of the chick has so far been encouraging for the zoo staff as the first three weeks are most critical for the growth and survival of the chick. “The hatching and survival of the first chick helps to secure a genetically healthy population,” said Tom Mason, curator of birds and invertebrates at the zoo. “African penguins are a high priority species, and these recent additions to our zoo family are a step in the right direction for the species as a whole.” Among the six breeding pairs are Buddy and Pedro — the male penguins whose same-sex bond made them famous in 2011. The pair was separated in November so they could mate with females as part of the breeding program. In early February Buddy and his partner Farai hatched two chicks, but they didn’t survive more than a few days. Pedro and his partner Thandiwe have not yet produced eggs but the zoo said they are engaging in courtship and nesting behavior.  Officials said all six breeding pairs have been successfully nesting for the last few months.

Zoo staff is raising the first chick born in the Toronto Zoo's African penguin breeding program after penguin parents Gozi and Puff rejected the hatchling

Penguins & Sharks As Roomates

New roommates can be dicey, but imagine the unease among the penguins at the California Academy of Sciences, as the Penguin Post  has learned that in a few weeks, they’ll be sharing their living quarters with a school of sharks.  Academy biologists are training five pyjama sharks, recently acquired from an aquarium in Portugal, to cohabitate with the 16 resident African penguins. This will be only the second aquarium in the world, aside from the Lisbon aquarium, to mix these two species. The purpose is not to create mass carnage, but to show both species in a more natural context. The two animals hail from the same locale, the temperate waters of the South African and Namibian coast. Academy staffers are confident the sharks won’t eat the penguins. “I’m not nervous at all. I think they’ll get along great,” said the academy’s shark expert, biologist Nancy Levine. “I think it’ll liven up everything.” If anything, Levine said, it’s the sharks that should be nervous. Pyjama sharks are docile, smallish creatures that usually stick to squid and small fish and don’t have an appetite for penguins. They spend most of their time hiding in caves or trolling along the sea floor. “Jaws,” they’re not. Penguins, on the other hand, have sharp, hook-like beaks, a territorial nature and are equally adept on land and water. They’re also on the curious side and likely to tease their new roommates, Levine said. “My guess is they’ll check out the sharks and then lose interest after the novelty wears off,” she said. In Portugal, the penguins have a tendency to nip at the sharks’ fins and tear up their egg cases. If that occurs in San Francisco, the sharks will get their own room back. Since the sharks arrived in December, the staff has kept them in a backstage tank where they’re undergoing training for dining etiquette. Training consists of staffers ringing a bell underwater and feeding the sharks squid hooked to a long stick. Gradually they raise the stick, so the sharks get in the habit of swimming to the surface when they hear the bell. This will make feeding-time easier once they move in with the penguins, and make sure that penguins won’t be on the menu.

Penguins waiting for their new roommates

Lavender = Penguin Passion?

A diamond may be a girl’s best friend, but in the African penguin world the females have far simpler tastes. It seems they’re extremely partial to sprigs of a plant found in many South African gardens: lavender, and the Penguin Post has learned that that’s certainly the case for the penguin guests at Shaka Sea World in Durban, South Africa.  Here it seems the plant is not coveted for its oils or culinary qualities, but rather as part of the penguins courtship ritual, where male penguins will present their female perspective partners with sprigs of lavender, supplied by Sea World staff, as material with which to build their nests.  In fact, this aromatic plant may have played a factor in the success of the breeding program at Sea World – more than 40 chicks between 2008 and 2011. The unusual practice – believed to be a world first – began four years ago at Shaka Sea World as part of an experiment to see which nesting materials penguins liked. Shaka Sea World director Judy Mann says the penguins are quite particular about their nests, so they usually spend quite some time searching for the right materials as they spend about 40 days sitting on the nest incubating their eggs. Incidentally, both the male and female are equally involved, and as we all know these penguins are monogamous. A staff member innocently suggested they add lavender to the nest making materials – and the rest is history. “The smell of the lavender calms the penguins down,” says Mann, “and lavender has some very strong antiseptic, anti-bacterial agents in it, so it helps to keep the nests clean – and (obviously) the penguins love it.” Mann says they’ve shared their lavender success story with other scientists at two international conferences. “And whether the lavender has helped our breeding program success we’re not sure, but it certainly seems to be one of the factors. “Love is in the air and lavender is helping. “So penguin loving guys, you may have a new strategy in your own courtship ritual –  lavender.

Thanks for the lavender.