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Penguins

NATURAL HISTORY AND CONSERVATION

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      .  

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Penguins

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Penguins G

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NATURAL HISTORY AND CONSERVATION

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Edited by

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Pablo Garcia Borboroglu and

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P. Dee Boersma

A SAMUEL AND ALTHEA STROUM BOOK

University of Washington Press Seattle & London

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Penguins is published with the assistance of a grant from the Samuel and Althea Stroum Endowed Book Fund, and supports the work of the Global Penguin Society, www.globalpenguinsociety.org.

© 2013 by the University of Washington Press Printed and bound in Korea Design by Thomas Eykemans Composed in Warnock, typeface designed by Robert Slimbach

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Display type set in Bodoni, designed by Morris Fuller Benton Headings set in Trade Gothic, designed by Jackson Burke

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16 15 14 13  5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

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transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

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including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval

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system, without permission in writing from the publisher. University of Washington Press PO Box 50096, Seattle, WA 98145, USA

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www.washington.edu/uwpress

The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum

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requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—

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ISBN 978-0-295-99284-6

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is available from the Library of Congress.

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Complete cataloging information for this title

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Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.∞

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Many years of work, effort,

which we hope will improve the world

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for penguins and for people.

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and persistence reside in this book,

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Contents

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Global Penguin Society  viii Introduction 3

II. BRUSH-TAILED PENGUINS GENUS PYGOSCELIS

III. YELLOW-EYED PENGUIN GENUS MEGADYPTES

1.

King Penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) 7

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Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) 37

6.

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Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) 23

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Chinstrap Penguin (Pygoscelis antarctica) 59

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Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua) 73

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I. LARGE PENGUINS GENUS APTENODYTES

Yellow-Eyed Penguin (Megadyptes antipodes) 91



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V. BANDED PENGUINS GENUS SPHENISCUS

VI. LITTLE (OR BLUE) PENGUIN GENUS EUDYPTULA

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African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus) 211

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IV. CRESTED PENGUINS GENUS EUDYPTES Southern Rockhopper Penguin (Eudyptes chrysocome) 113

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Northern Rockhopper Penguin (Eudyptes moseleyi) 131

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Magellanic Penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) 233

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Erect-Crested Penguin (Eudyptes sclateri) 145

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Humboldt Penguin (Spheniscus humboldti) 265

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Fiordland Penguin (Eudyptes pachyrhynchus) 153

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Galápagos Penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) 285

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Snares Penguin (Eudyptes robustus) 169

12.

Macaroni Penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus) and Royal Penguin (Eudyptes schlegeli) 185

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Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor) 305

Conclusion 321 Acknowledgments 325 Contributors 327

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makers improve management and educate local communities about the value of penguins. The Global Penguin Society links local stakeholders to policy change using penguins. It provides opportunities for the public, scientists, and managers to develop and advocate solutions for sustainable activities and management for marine and coastal environments. When appropriate, GPS campaigns to educate people about how to improve the quality of life for both penguins and people. In brief, the Global Penguin Society encourages synergy, strategy, and integration and provides a unified vision to enhance the scope of penguin conservation achievements. www.globalpenguinsociety.org

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The Global Penguin Society (GPS) is an international alliance-building organization that promotes the protection of the world’s penguin species through science, management, and education. As an international forum for conservation, GPS helps NGOs, academic and research institutions, individual projects, local communities, and other partners work together for the conservation of penguins and oceans. Working synergistically, GPS accelerates and enhances penguin and ocean conservation efforts. Penguins are conservation subjects as well as tools for ocean conservation. The Society fosters the science needed for conservation and adequate management of penguins and marine environments at local, regional, and global scales. GPS uses science to help decision

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Penguins

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Introduction million years old. Their origins, however, may be rooted in the Cretaceous period, 140 to 65 million years ago, when their ancestor was a flying seabird. Whether that ancestral form was a loon, an albatross, or a frigate bird is unclear. In this book, we organized the chapters by the relationships among penguins based on current morphological and molecular knowledge. The six genera of living penguins (Aptenodytes, Eudyptes, Eudyptula, Megadyptes, Pygoscelis, and Spheniscus) are clearly defined, and their classification has stood the test of time. The relationship between species within and outside their genera is not so fixed. We start the book with the largest penguins, the king and emperor (Aptenodytes), and end with the smallest, the little (Eudyptula). Each species account provides the common and scientific names, description, taxonomic status, range and distribution, summary of population trends, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) status, natural history, population sizes and trends, map and size of colonies, general annual cycle, main threats, recommended research and conservation actions, and current conservation efforts for the species. We use the same order in each chapter. The material presented should inform human action, whether it is research, policy, or on-the-ground conservation. The editors hope this book will do more than inform you about penguins. First we must know, then understand, and, finally, we can act. We hope you will be moved to help penguins. Even though penguins live in remote areas of the world, humans have a big impact on them. Early Antarctic explorers depended on them for food, businessmen harvested tens of thousands of them for their oil, and

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Penguins are Southern Hemisphere seabirds. They are athletic, interesting, and ancient. Some Magellanic penguins migrate more than 2,400 miles from the Strait of Magellan in Argentina to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Magellanic penguins can travel more than 170 kilometers in a day, and do so under their own power—no fossil fuel use for them. A breeding Magellanic likely covers 16,000 kilometers a year, the average distance a car is driven in the United States. Emperor penguins breed in Antarctica, where they keep their eggs warm by holding them on their feet while enduring temperatures as cold as −30 to −40oC with the wind blowing 40 meters per second. Humans couldn’t survive for long in those conditions. If that doesn’t take your breath away, imagine fasting in these conditions as a male emperor does for up to four months, without a bite to eat except snow and ice. Penguins are remarkable creatures. They vary in size from the little penguin, which weighs just about 1 kilogram and is a shallow diver, to the emperor penguin, which weighs up to 40 kilograms and can dive 500 meters and hold its breath for 23 minutes. In comparison, the record dive for a human is 101 meters in 4.13 minutes. Penguin species live in environments ranging from the tropics of the Galápagos Islands to frozen Antarctica and across islands and continents in the Southern Hemisphere. They all are black and white, and some have yellow and orange crests or a bluish coloration. Some individuals in the wild live more than 30 years. They nest in deserts, in forests, on bare rock, in burrows, under bushes, under trees, and in the open. Fossils suggest that penguins flourished between 10 and 40 million years ago, and the oldest fossil is about 55

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details the lives of the world’s penguins. A total of 49 researchers from 12 countries on 5 continents participated in this effort. This is the first book to bring the world’s experts together to share what they know about each species. The book is a milestone for the Global Penguin Society (GPS), a group dedicated to the well-being of penguins. Mitigating and managing the threats to penguins on local, regional, and global scales require funding and social networking. The Global Penguin Society helps researchers, landowners, politicians, and governments give penguins a voice. Penguins are environmental sentinels. People love penguins but are unaware of their decline. Their natural charisma makes them the perfect ambassadors to advocate for the health of our oceans and coasts.

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earlier settlers on islands ate them and collected their eggs. Now penguins are among the most endangered seabirds. About two-thirds of penguin species are on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The threat of human harvest has decreased, but climate variation, fishing, habitat modification, disease, and even tourism loom as threats. Human impacts will likely continue to be largely negative on seabirds as human numbers grow beyond 7 billion and consumption increases. The fate of seabirds, from albatrosses to penguins, is linked with our own. Penguins are among the most popular and best-loved birds. March of the Penguins, the highest-grossing documentary of all time, features emperor penguins. Whether a person turns to the movies or children’s books, penguins figure significantly in human culture. This book

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Introduction

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