We Suddenly Lost Our Dog To Hemangiosarcoma

Gentoos Top The Penguin Charts As Seabirds Return In Record Numbers

Monday, August 31st 2009 - 09:15 UTC Gentoos have made a remarkable recovery after mass mortality

Gentoo penguins are returning to the Falklands in record numbers, after their best breeding season in more than ten years. Kings, too, continue to thrive, making this season's Seabird Monitoring Programme one of the healthiest undertaken. Falklands Conservation officer Pierre Pistorius has produced this special report for the Penguin News…

The Falkland Islands Seabird Monitoring Programme (FISMP) was initiated in 1989/90 with the objective of monitoring gentoo, magellanic, rockhopper and king penguins and black-browed albatross.

This has become the longest running species monitoring programme in the Islands, and is vital to identify the health of the populations and, importantly, it can detect where populations are declining and at risk.

In 2006, annual monitoring of southern giant petrels was incorporated and, during the same year, a long-term demographic study was also initiated on black-browed albatross on Steeple Jason.

Each year Falklands Conservation monitors a number of study colonies around the Islands, and every five years a full island census is conducted.

The monitoring effort is conducted over November to count breeding pairs on nests, and in January/ February to count the number of chicks just before fledging.

The combination of this data allows detection of changes in population size and breeding success.

Gentoo penguins are annually counted at 15 colonies, and during the 2008/09 season showed a remarkable increase of 53.5 per cent from the previous year's counts.

This represents the highest number of gentoos recorded from and population numbers at present could well be the highest they have been over the past 15 years.

It also represents a full recovery after the mass mortality that was associated with the harmful algal bloom event in 2002/2003.

Despite the fact that mortality in February resulted from starvation and avian pox at some sites, it is estimated that this affected only a small proportion of the population.

These deaths, which are unusual so close to fledging, was in all likelihood related to a warm water anomaly in early February which probably affected their food resources.

Along the east coast of East Falkland the faeces of penguins were noted to have lost the pink colouration resulting from consuming lobster krill.

This may have been the key prey item, known to make up a significant proportion of the diet in gentoos that either shifted distribution or suffered mortality as a result if the influx of warm water.

The outbreak of avian pox was restricted to a few colonies and fortunately there were no observations of it having spread to other species.

Last season's counts from the six Rockhopper penguin colonies that are annually monitored showed some signs of recovery with a small but encouraging increase in numbers during the past two years.

The island population declined by close on 100,000 pairs between 2000 and 2005, largely as a result of the 2002 algal bloom event, and is currently only about 15 per cent of its former population in the 1930s.

Although rockhopper penguins are potentially being impacted through pollution, predation and disease, food limitation is most certainly the most likely cause for the long term population decline.

Magellanic penguins are monitored at Volunteer Point, Sea Lion Island and Steeple Jason, where the numbers of occupied burrows are counted along transects within the same area each year. The number of magellanics occupying burrows has shown a general decline since 2000, although in the 2008/09 season there was a small increase in numbers from the previous year.

For the third consecutive year breeding success has, however, been above average. The breeding population of magellanics penguins in the Falklands has been estimated at about 100,000 breeding pairs, but the burrow-nesting habits, varying densities within colonies, and extensive distribution makes this the hardest Falklands penguin species to monitor.

The population estimate is consequently very crude and we currently have a relatively poor understanding of the status of the Falklands population.

King penguins at Volunteer Point continue to thrive. A record number of 594 chicks were counted last season. The population has slowly been increasing since the first count in 1980.

This increase in numbers is largely mirrored throughout the sub-Antarctic and represents a recovery after more than a century of decline as a result of their exploitation for penguin oil, associated with the sealing industry.

King penguins breeding on the Falklands had all been exterminated by 1870. It is thought that the recent rapid increase in numbers here could also be attributed to immigration from South Georgia, where numbers have been increasing and the population expanding.

If anyone is interested in being sent the full FISMP 2008/09 Report in PDF, please email info@conservation.Org.Fk.

Falklands Conservation would like to thank all the landowners who kindly allowed access to conduct fieldwork on their land, and all individuals involved in volunteering and logistics. FISMP is supported and funded by the Falkland Islands Government through the environmental studies budget. ( Penguin News)

WATCH: Rare Penguin Rehabilitated At Aussie Zoo

SOUTH PERTH, Australia (KMID/KPEJ) – Veterinarians at the Perth Zoo were rehabilitating a Northern Rockhopper Penguin, after she was found washed up on a beach in southwest Australia, according to the Zoo.

Footage by the Perth Zoo showed the adorable bird, Pascale, living in the lap of luxury at their facility. A zookeeper can be seen feeding her fish.

"Rockhoppers are native to islands in the Indian or south Atlantic Ocean, so poor little Pascale was quite far from home!" the zoo said. They are considered "one of the rarest penguin species."

WATCH: OH dispatcher loses temper on road rage victim

The Perth Zoo said when Pascale was found, she presented with arrested molt, which meant she had started her annual feather molt, but it was interrupted. Due to the interruption in her natural cycle, Pascale would not be able to be released into the wild after her rehabilitation.

After her recovery, Pascale would likely be transferred to a conservation zoo in Singapore so she could be matched with a male rockhopper penguin that was previously rehabilitated by the Perth Zoo.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Yourbasin.

View comments

Endangered Northern Rockhopper Penguin Eggs Hatch At Edinburgh Zoo

The Northern Rockhopper penguins are endangered due to climate change, changes in marine ecosystems and overfishing.

Two endangered penguin eggs have successfully hatched at Edinburgh Zoo.

The Northern Rockhopper penguins are threatened due to climate change, changes in marine ecosystems and overfishing.

"The first 30 days are critical for their development, so we will be keeping a close eye on them at this sensitive time," said the zoo's senior penguin keeper Dawn Nicoll.

Keepers are hopeful two Gentoo penguin eggs will begin hatching soon as well.

"All going well, it won't be long before visitors can spot the youngsters with the rest of our colony at Penguins Rock," Ms Nicoll added.

Edinburgh Zoo is home to more than 100 penguins from three species: King, Northern Rockhopper and Gentoo.

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) is part of a European breeding programme for northern rockhopper penguins.

It has been working to safeguard the species in the wild and has been carrying out genetic analysis in the zoo to understand connections between the breeding populations on remote islands in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

---