Study reveals whaling and climate change led to 100 years of feast or famine for Antarctic penguins

ANTARCTICA – New research reveals how penguins have dealt with more than a century of human impacts in Antarctica and why some species are winners or losers in this rapidly changing ecosystem.

A chinstrap penguin standing on snow near a
breeding colony along the Antarctic Peninsula.
Credit: Michael Polito © Louisiana State University

Michael Polito, assistant professor in Louisiana State University’s (LSU's) Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences and his co-authors published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Although remote, Antarctica has a long history of human impacts on its ecosystems and animals. By the early to mid-1900s, humans had hunted many of its seals and whales nearly to extinction. Seal and whale populations are now recovering, but decades of climate change and a growing commercial fishing industry have further degraded the environment,” Polito said.

Without Paris Accord, emperor penguins are in dire straits

ANTARCTICA – Unless climate change is slowed, emperor penguins will be marching towards extinction, according to a newly published study co-authored by a University of Canterbury (UC) scientist.

“Basically, if we don’t hit the Paris Accord emissions goals, emperor penguins are in deep trouble,” said paper co-author UC scientist Dr Michelle LaRue, a Lecturer of Antarctic Marine Science in the School of Earth and Environment.

Emperor penguins are some of the most striking and charismatic animals on Earth, but a new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in the United States has found that climate change may render them extinct by the end of this century. The study, which was part of an international collaboration between scientists, was published on 7 November in the journal Global Change Biology.

Hey! Ho! Hoiho! Yellow-eyed penguin crowned NZ Bird of the Year for 2019

NEW ZEALAND – Widely considered an underdog, the valiant hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin) has smashed the feathered ceiling to win Bird of the Year, a first for seabirds in the competition's 14-year history.

For much of the two-week voting period in Forest & Bird's annual competition, the hoiho was neck and neck with the iconic kākāpō, only managing to edge ahead in the final few days.

"It was so close between these two amazing endangered birds, it was impossible to predict a winner for most of the competition," said Forest & Bird spokesperson Megan Hubscher.

Study recommends special protection of emperor penguins

ANTARCTICA – In a new study published in the journal Biological Conservation, an international team of researchers recommends the need for additional measures to protect and conserve one of the most iconic Antarctic species – the emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri).

Adult emperor penguins with chick
on the sea ice close to Halley Research
Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf.
Photo credit: British Antarctic Survey

The researchers reviewed over 150 studies on the species and its environment as well as its behaviour and character in relation to its breeding biology. Current climate change projections indicate that rising temperatures and changing wind patterns will negatively impact the sea ice on which emperor penguins breed. Some studies indicate that emperor populations will decrease by more than 50% over the current century.

The researchers therefore recommend that the species be escalated to ‘vulnerable’ from its current status as ‘near threatened’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. They conclude that improvements in climate change forecasting in relation to impacts on Antarctic wildlife would be beneficial, and recommend that the emperor penguin should be listed by the Antarctic Treaty as a Specially Protected Species.

Another monster prehistoric penguin find in New Zealand

NEW ZEALAND – A new species of giant penguin – about 1.6 metres tall – has been identified from fossils found in Waipara, North Canterbury.

The discovery of Crossvallia waiparensis, a monster penguin from the Paleocene Epoch (between 66 and 56 million years ago), adds to the list of gigantic, but extinct, New Zealand fauna. These include the world’s largest parrot, a giant eagle, giant burrowing bat, the moa and other giant penguins.

C. waiparensis is one of the world’s oldest known penguin species and also one of the largest – taller even than today’s 1.2 metre emperor penguin – and weighing up to 70 to 80 kg.

A life size model of Crossvallia waiparensis
by Canterbury Museum on Sketchfab

Plan to reverse precarious position of yellow-eyed penguin

NEW ZEALAND – Government, iwi and a community organisation have banded together to turn around the fortunes of the nationally endangered hoiho/yellow-eyed penguin, which recently suffered a series of poor breeding seasons.

At the annual hoiho/yellow-eyed penguin symposium in Dunedin on 3 August, the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced Te Kaweka Takohaka mō te Hoiho/Yellow-eyed Penguin Recovery Strategy. It is a draft strategy to restore hoiho populations in the face of pressures from human activities, climate change and predators, alongside a supporting action plan.

African penguin research project begins at Boulders Penguin Colony

SOUTH AFRICA – In the last week of May, a much-anticipated research project will start at Boulders Penguin Colony in Simonstown. The African penguin movement ecology research project will take place over the penguins' breeding season from May to September 2019.

“The study is being led by the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology from the University of Cape Town and SANCCOB. The partnership will see a collaboration between these two organisations and South African National Parks – Cape Research Centre to conduct the study,” said Dr Alison Kock, Marine Biologist: Cape Research Centre.

Penguins and their chicks’ responses to local fish numbers informs marine conservation

SOUTH AFRICA – How adult penguins fish and the body condition of their chicks are directly linked to local fish abundance, and could potentially inform fishery management, a new study has found.

African penguin adult at the edge of the colony
on Robben Island, South Africa.
Photo credit: R.B. Sherley

The researchers studied an endangered African penguin colony during a rare three-year closure of commercial fisheries around Robben Island, South Africa, and their findings were published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Fishing is often considered to be one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss in the ocean. It is so widespread that we lack an understanding of the ‘natural’ relationships between marine predators and their prey, and thus the extent to which predators are disrupted by competition from fisheries.

This is a critical knowledge gap since many marine predators such as penguins are considered indicator species: a species whose success indicates the condition of their habitat.

"Catastrophic" breeding failure at one of world’s largest emperor penguin colonies

ANTARCTICA – Emperor penguins at the Halley Bay colony in the Weddell Sea have failed to raise chicks for the last three years, scientists have discovered.

Adult emperor penguins with chick on the
sea ice close to Halley Research Station on
the Brunt Ice Shelf. Credit: Richard Burt.

Researchers from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) studied very high resolution satellite imagery to reveal the unusual findings, published on 25 April 2019 in the journal Antarctic Science.

Until recently, the Halley Bay colony was the second largest in the world, with the number of breeding pairs varying each year between 14,000–25,000; around 5–9% of the global emperor penguin population.

The failure to raise chicks for three consecutive years is associated with changes in the local sea-ice conditions. Emperor penguins need stable sea-ice on which to breed, and this icy platform must last from April when the birds arrive, until December when their chicks fledge.

For the last 60 years the sea-ice conditions in the Halley Bay site have been stable and reliable. But in 2016, after a period of abnormally stormy weather, the sea-ice broke up in October, well before any emperor chicks would have fledged.

This pattern was repeated in 2017 and again in 2018 and led to the death of almost all the chicks at the site each season.

DNA provides insights into penguin evolution and reveals two new extinct penguins

NEW ZEALAND – New research has improved our understanding of when and why penguins evolved, and has identified two recently extinct penguins from New Zealand’s remote Chatham Islands.

Penguins. Artist: Sean Murtha.
The painting, created to mark this research,
shows Eudyptes warhami in the foreground,
with Megadyptes antipodes richdalei in the background.

In the study, published online in the scientific journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, an international team of researchers sequenced mitochondrial genomes from all living and recently extinct penguin species. By analysing the genetic relationships of species, and using ancient fossil penguins to put a time scale on these, the team showed that many penguin species arose soon after the geological formation of islands, including those inhabiting the Antipodes and Chatham Islands, Macquarie Island, Gough Island and Galápagos Islands.

Lead author of the study, Otago University PhD candidate Theresa Cole, said, “From an evolutionary perspective, it’s fascinating to understand how and why species evolve. We were able to provide a comprehensive framework for exploring these questions about penguins, and demonstrated for the first time that islands may have played a key role in penguin evolution.”

Little blue penguins stolen from nest

NEW ZEALAND – The Department of Conservation (DOC) is concerned about the potential smuggling of little blue penguins in Hawkes Bay, after receiving information about the capture and removal of two birds from a burrow at Perfume Point in Napier.

DOC Hawkes Bay Compliance Officer Rod Hansen said they had received information about the late-night raid which happened on 24 January 2019 at 10.30 pm.

He said a woman was observed holding a torch while two men used a crowbar to capture three of the penguins, one of which died in the raid and was left behind.

Two of the penguins were wrapped in towels and taken away by the group who departed in a small white four door car.

Emperor penguins' first journey to sea

ANTARCTICA – Emperor penguin chicks hatch into one of Earth’s most inhospitable places – the frozen world of Antarctica. Childhood in this environment is harsh and lasts only about five months, when their formerly doting parents leave the fledglings to fend for themselves.

Photo: Vincent Munier

New research by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and colleagues reveals the previously unknown behaviours of juvenile emperor penguins in their critical early months when they leave their birth colony and first learn how to swim, dive and find food.

The paper, published on 17 January 2019 in Marine Ecology Progress Series, also highlights the unique connection between juvenile diving behaviours and a layer of the ocean known as the thermocline, where warmer surface waters meet cooler deep waters below and where their prey likely gather in groups.

Female penguins are getting stranded along the South American coast

SOUTH AMERICA – Every year, thousands of Magellanic penguins are stranded along the South American coast – from northern Argentina to southern Brazil – 1000 kilometres away from their breeding ground in northern Patagonia. Now researchers have new evidence to explain why the stranded birds are most often female: female penguins venture farther north than males do, where they are apparently more likely to run into trouble. Their findings were reported on 7 January 2019 in Current Biology.

Magellanic penguins,
Photo credit: Takashi Yamamoto

"Anthropogenic threats have been considered to threaten wintering Magellanic penguins along the coasts of northern Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil," said Takashi Yamamoto of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics in Tokyo.

"These include water pollution caused by oil development and marine transport as well as fishery-associated hazards, such as by-catch and depletion of prey species.

"Our results suggest that the northward spatial expansion likely increases the probability to suffer these risks, and particularly so in females."

Single male Magellanic penguin numbers rising at Punta Tombo

ARGENTINA – Like most of their stout-bodied, flippered kin, Magellanic penguins spend much of their lives in the ocean. From late autumn through winter and into spring in the Southern Hemisphere, these South American penguins swim off the coast of southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina in search of anchovies, sardines and squid.

A young male Magellanic penguin.
Photo: Natasha Gownaris

But as spring turns to summer, they swim thousands of miles south and congregate in big coastal colonies. There, males and females pair off, breed and attempt to rear one or two newly hatched chicks. One of the largest breeding colonies for Magellanic penguins is at Punta Tombo in Argentina, where University of Washington (UW) biology professor P. Dee Boersma and her team at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels have studied the penguins since 1982. They have documented a population decline at Punta Tombo of more than 40 percent since 1987, along with a rising male-to-female ratio, and have spent years trying to pinpoint its cause.

In a paper published on 2 January 2019 in the journal Ecological Applications, Boersma and UW postdoctoral researcher Natasha Gownaris report that juvenile females are more likely to die at sea, which has caused a skewed sex ratio of nearly three males to every female, as well as population decline. Their study incorporated more than 30 years of population data collected by UW researchers – including banding and studying individual penguins – into models of population dynamics.