Disastrous breeding season for yellow-eyed penguins

A starving yellow-eyed
penguin chick in the Catlins
weighed just 3.5 kilograms.
Credit: DOC

NEW ZEALAND - Starving yellow-eyed penguin chicks are receiving supplementary feeding from penguin conservation organisations during one of the most disastrous breeding seasons in recent years.

Penguin Place on Otago Peninsula, the Katiki Point Penguin Trust in North Otago and volunteers, with the support of the Department of Conservation (DOC), are supplementary feeding the chicks to give them and their parents a better chance at survival.

A shortage of food for the chicks has resulted in low numbers of chicks surviving to three months and low weights, DOC ranger Mel Young said.

"Sad Swimmer" Morgan trying to do a "Happy Feet"?

NEW ZEALAND - It might not be quite as captivating as Mumbles' dancing in "Happy Feet", but perhaps Morgan the penguin's refusal to swim is his way of alerting people to the impact of the La Nina weather pattern.

(For readers who haven't seen "Happy Feet", Mumbles and his fellow animated penguins dance to alert humans to the consquences of overfishing in Antarctica.)

Morgan, a 16-year-old white-flippered penguin, was found starving and malnourished at Flea Bay, Banks Peninsula, earlier in May and taken to Christchurch's International Antarctic Centre, where his abnormal dislike for water was discovered.

"This is a really unusual penguin. It is the first time we have ever seen a mature penguin that has come in from the wild and simply refuses to swim," centre director Richard Benton told The Press. When Morgan is placed in water, he quickly hauls himself out using his beak and flippers.

His refusal to swim isn't the only unusual aspect of his behaviour - he also likes to flip his water bowl upside down and stand on it. Hopefully this party trick will impress the ladies, or at least one particular lady. Penguin keeper Mallorie Hackett told The Press she hopes that when Morgan is introduced to the centre's main penguin encounter later this month he will pair up with white-flippered female penguin Parnia.

He will join other unique penguins who have made the encounter their home, such as blind Elvis, one-eyed Roxy and one-legged Bagpipes. The penguins at the centre are all birds that have been rescued. Many of them would not have survived in the wild due to physical disabilities.

Morgan made the international press in May when he featured in an AFP article about the impact of La Nina on New Zealand's penguin population. In the article, Morgan (described as "grumpy" and "a reluctant passenger") is being transported in a cat box by conservationist Shirleen Helps, on whose property he was found.

While Morgan was on his way to somewhere with plenty of food, many of the other penguins at the colony on Ms Helps' property haven't been so lucky. She told AFP that hundreds of penguins at the colony have died.

"This year's been a terrible year, we've had big starvation issues at sea," she said.

New Zealand's Department of Conservation (DOC) said the reason behind the lack of penguin prey is La Nina, a weather pattern characterised by unusually cool ocean temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific.

This is the most severe La Nina in 25 years and DOC is predicting that thousands of penguins could die this year as the weather pattern reduces the schools of baitfish upon which the birds depend.

In May, necropsies of 18 penguins found washed up on New Zealand shores found none had food in their stomachs and they died from starvation and exposure, DOC said.

He probably doesn't realise it, but Morgan is one lucky little penguin.

Read related posts

Sources
The little penguin that wouldn't by Olivia Carville, 27 May 2011, The Press 
Penguins in peril find refuge in New Zealand by Neil Sands, 20 May 2011, AFP 

Poor food availability caused penguin deaths

NEW ZEALAND - The Department of Conservation (DOC) has received the necropsy results from Massey University for little penguins washed up dead on East Coast beaches in late April. The answer: La Nina strikes again.

According to DOC, the penguin deaths are consistent with a prolonged period of starvation and exposure.

Jamie Quirk, Ranger, Biodiversity Assets, said that eighteen little penguins from two different sites including those found washed up at Waihau Bay were tested.

"A good cross-section of the population were tested: eight adult females, five adult males and five sub-adults (sex undetermined)," he said.

The experts at Massey concluded that twelve died of starvation and emaciation, five died of starvation, emaciation and exposure and one died from exposure, hypothermia and an infection. No food was found in the stomachs of any of the birds. Penguin health is measured as a body score with a maximum of nine; the body score for twelve of the penguins was 2/9 and the remaining six scored 3/9.

"The penguin deaths are linked to the La Nina weather patterns which have reduced the amount of baitfish available. The empty stomachs and low fat reserves leading to low body score are the result of this poor food availability," said Mr Quirk.

The dead penguins were examined after East Coast residents raised the possibility that seismic testing being carried out in the region by oil company Petrobras was the cause.

Read related post: Is seismic testing to blame for penguin deaths?

Source
Results received for penguin deaths on East Coast beaches, 4 May 2011, Department of Conservation

Little penguin successfully released after zoo's "tender loving care"

NEW ZEALAND - Animal rescuers scored another point against the La Nina weather patterns with the successful release of a rehabilitated little penguin.

The fledgling was found, starving and malnourished, at Lyall Bay and taken to Wellington Zoo in late January. After two months of being fed on a diet of salmon, vitamin supplements and salt, the young bird made a great recovery, veterinary science manager Lisa Argilla told the Dominion Post.

"He didn't really need much medical treatment, just some worm tablets and a lot of tender loving care," she said. He also spent a lot of time in the pool to keep his fitness up.

The penguin's release at Moa Point went like clockwork, Dr Argilla said. As soon as the cage was opened the penguin "charged out and made straight for the water".

I am glad the penguin is back in the wild where he belongs, but I hope he will find enough to eat. Dr Argilla told the Dominion Post that the current La Nina weather patterns were making it hard for sea birds to find food, because the calmer seas meant fewer small fish and plankton close to the surface of the water for them to feed on.

La Nina is a formidable opponent and animal rescuers can't save every bird that is brought in. Sadly, another young little penguin brought in to Wellington Zoo around the same time in a similar condition died shortly after it arrived.

Read related post: La Nina behind hundreds of little penguin deaths

Sources
The Office Zoo patient declared seaworthy by Stacey Wood, 24 March 2011, The Dominion Post
Dying birds stir extinction fears by Kiran Chug, 22 January 2011, The Dominion Post

La Nina behind hundreds of little penguin deaths

Little penguins in New Zealand.
Photo by ricklibrarian. Some rights reserved.

NEW ZEALAND - Blame it on the weather. Hundreds of little penguins and other seabirds are starving to death, and conservationists say the La Nina weather pattern may be the reason behind their lack of food.

La Nina is the counterpart of El Nino in the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean. Although it is a natural phenomenon, ENSO causes extreme weather such as floods and droughts. It is thought that the current La Nina weather pattern - the strongest since 1975 - is responsible for the recent floods in Queensland, Australia.

And for the little penguins, it has meant a lack of prey. MetService weather ambassador Bob McDavitt told The Northern Advocate that La Nina's northerly winds have driven a layer of warm subtropical water on to New Zealand, stopping the usual upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water around the coast.

In normal conditions, it is these cold currents that stir up the ocean and bring penguin prey such as small fish and plankton near the surface of the water.

Shireen Helps and her husband Francis have been caring for a colony of white-flippered penguins (a subspecies of little penguin) on their Banks Peninsula property for about 25 years. Mrs Helps told The Dominion Post that the unusually warm currents had made it difficult for the adult penguins to find food. They had to stay out foraging at sea for too long, which lead to their chicks starving. Most of the chicks that hatched at the colony between October and December – numbering in the hundreds - had died, she said.

"There were chicks dying in their burrows, in the hillside, and heaps dying on the water."

Department of Conservation vet Kate McInnes told The Northern Advocate the seabird deaths were sad but the result of a natural event. She advised that even if starving birds were rescued, releasing them back into the wild in these lean times was risky.

"Even if we ran around and fed every baby chick we could find, when they fledge they won't be able to find food."

Lisa Argilla, Wellington Zoo’s veterinary science manager, said she was concerned about what would happen to species such as penguins if extreme weather events happened more frequently.

She told The Dominion Post, "They're natural occurrences that always happen, but now they're happening more regularly and it's playing havoc with wildlife populations."

Penguins needed five or six years of good conditions for populations to regenerate, she said.

Scientists are not sure whether ENSO events will be more frequent in the future. But if they are, it could mean little penguin populations are in big trouble.

Sources

Blue penguins dying on Northland beaches suffering from starvation, 24 December 2010, The Northern Advocate

Dying birds stir extinction fears by Kiran Chug, 22 January 2011, The Dominion Post

El Nino-Southern Oscillation, Wikipedia