On October 5, 2011, a Greek-owned container ship, MV-Rena, ran aground on Astrolabe Reef in the Bay of Plenty off the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The ship was carrying 1,300 containers of cargo (some containing hazardous materials) as well as an estimated 600,000 gallons of heavy fuel. At present over 100,000 gallons have spilled from the crippled ship onto New Zealand beaches while salvage crews are racing to get the remaining fuel and cargo off the ship before the weather changes and the ship breaks up.


MV Rena
Credit: Bay of Plenty Regional Council

The Bay of Plenty, named by explorer James Cook in 1769, is as its name suggests: an area of abundant natural resources and species. The area is home to many species of seabirds including little blue penguins and the endangered New Zealand dotterel as well as seals, whales, dolphins and many coastal fish species.


Little blue penguin
Credit: Blair Harkness

New Zealand dotterel
Credit: Chris Gin, via Wikimedia Commons

So far over 100,000 gallons of fuel has hit the local beaches and is now cleaned up due to the hard work of volunteers. Over 1,200 birds have been found dead and another 200 are being treated at a rehabilitation facility set up by Massey University.


Beach cleanup
Credit: New Zealand Defense Force

The big fear now is that if all the fuel is not pumped off the ship before it breaks up on the reef there will be more environmental damage.If you would like to view up to the minute reports about the spill and the salvage process check out the Maritime New Zealand web site. WWF-New Zealand is also involved in the spill recovery and fundraising efforts.

The penguin team is hoping for positive salvage efforts and the avoidance of more environmental damage from the Rena. Fingers crossed.

— Heather

To a human the six fiberglass islands in the penguin exhibit don’t look very comfortable, but to a penguin they are heaven. But you still may wonder, “Where and how do the penguins go to sleep at night?”


Penguin islands

The penguins stay on exhibit overnight and sleep right on the islands. They can even sleep while floating in the water. During a visit to the Aquarium you might catch a glimpse of the penguins taking naps during the day. They can sleep either lying down or standing up on the rocks and sometimes when they are standing up they will tuck the beak under the wings.



Asleep laying down


Asleep standing up


That’s not a headless penguin; he just has his head tucked behind his wing.

When it’s time for the lights to go off we even simulate sunrise and sunset. The exhibit lights are on a timer so they turn on and off at designated times of the day based on local sunrise and sunset times. This is called a photoperiod. The penguin exhibit day lengths vary depending on the season (longer days in the summer and shorter days in the winter). This helps the penguins maintain a healthy life cycle that will cue them into their breeding and molting seasons. {link to breeding and molting blogs}



Pleasant dreams!

- Andrea

This guest post comes to you from Sam Herman of the Aquarium's Visitor Experience department. You may know him from the Exhibit Galleries Blog, where he's posted about fish-eating jellies and airborne right whale skeletons. Sam has also had the opportunity for the past year to cross-train in the penguin department, giving educational presentations from within the exhibit.

If you’re a regular blog reader, you probably already know how we tell our penguins apart in the exhibit – their color bracelets! As Andrea has discussed in this previous post on the Penguin Blog, African penguins can be identified by their unique, fingerprint-like spots on the chest and belly. However, that’s pretty difficult to see when they’re swimming around (and a lot harder to memorize!) so instead we put bracelets on the penguins’ wings to make it easier. We also use the bracelets to identify gender, left wing bracelet means it’s a male and right wing bracelet means it’s a female.


A male and female penguins in the exhibit, note the bracelets on their arms.

As you can imagine there are a lot of different color patterns to remember! Sometimes, it becomes just a tad bit harder because we’ll change a bird’s bracelet. This may not seem like a great idea since everyone has already memorized the name/color combination, but it’s actually a very important change! African penguins are an endangered species and one way that the New England Aquarium is helping to protect them is by participating in a breeding program called the Species Survival Plan. When the color is changed it is usually done to indicate that we have a new, successful SSP breeding pair on exhibit!


Ichaboe (left) and Spheniscus (right)

After the past breeding season, we had an actual color change happen. We’re glad to report that Spheniscus (female) and Ichaboe (male) have had their second successful breeding season as an SSP approved pair and Spheniscus officially changed her colors. In the past she was purple and white on her right wing, she now has black and orange bracelet to match Ichaboe’s color pattern. She was chosen to change because there is already a male with purple and white bracelet: both she and her brother Demersus had the same color pattern because their names, when combined together, create the scientific name of the African penguin – Spheniscus demersus.


Spheniscus wearing her special new wing bracelet

So next time you’re at the Aquarium, see if you can see two African penguins with orange and black bracelets. While you’re at it, keep an eye out for all eight juveniles hatched during the 2011 breeding season.

See you in the galleries!

- 
Sam

The penguin blogs have been sparse lately because the penguin staff has been very busy with another successful African penguin breeding season. (Catch up on last year's successful breeding season here!) We are happy to report that eight penguin chicks hatched in May and June and have just joined the rest of the colony on exhibit!


A new addition to the African penguin colony

It is hard to believe that just over five months ago we were bringing our breeding pairs behind the scenes to start the breeding season. Within two to three weeks the breeding pairs started to lay their eggs, and incubate them. About forty days later the chicks inside started to pip out. The penguin parents did an awesome job raising the chicks, regurgitating fish to them and when the chicks reached about 2000g in weight we stepped in and started hand feeding them. They all fledged and started swimming in tubs and soon graduated to swimming in the exhibit. Now they are all grown up and have joined the penguin colony.


Weighing in


Swimming lessons, behind the scenes


Testing the waters in the penguin colony

I am proud to introduce you to the newest members of the NEAQ’s penguin colony!

• TAG with a yellow and white bracelet on the left wing. TAG is named after the Taxon Advisory Group, whose mission is to examine the conservation needs of a species and to develop recommendations for population management and conservation based on the needs of that species.

• Vello with a purple and orange bracelet on the left wing. Vello is named after Alvero Vello, who wrote about penguins in his sailing journals, and was thought to be the first European to sight African penguins.

• Brenton has a red and grey bracelet on the right wing. Brenton is named after Brenton Island which is one of several islands in Algoa Bay that is recognized as an IBA (important bird area) by BirdLife.

• Geirfugl has a blue and black bracelet on the left wing. Geirfugl was the early name for the Great Auk which was a penguin like bird that once lived in the Northern Hemisphere.

• Apollo with a white and grey bracelet on the left wing. Apollo is named after the Chinese ore carrier Apollo Sea that sunk off the coast of Cape Town, in June of 1994 resulting in a severe oil spill that oiled thousands of African penguins.

• Tux with a green and black bracelet on the left wing, and is named after penguins' countershading camouflage (dark on the back, white on the front) because it resembles a tuxedo look.

• Kaapse with a brown and black bracelet on the right wing. Kaapse means “cape” in Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa.

• And AEWA with a blue and grey bracelet on the right wing; AEWA’s name was chosen from a list of names that Aquarium member submitted in a members-only contest. AEWA stands for the African-Eurasian Waterbird Alliance, which is a multi-national organization that protects 255 species of waterbirds, including African penguins, that rely on coastal wetland areas. Thanks to Hilary H. from Cambridge, Mass. for the suggestion, as well as all the other participants who suggested a lot of really good names!

Next time you are at the Aquarium make sure you stop by and say “Hi” to our newest penguins.


The class of 2011! (Note their temporary arm bands in this picture, they've since graduated to their permanent bands described above.)

-Andrea

Early birds got a peek at some very special birds at the Aquarium today. FOX 25's Cindy Fitzgibbon brought viewers behind the scenes where penguin biologists Paul and Andrea fed the African penguin chicks, that were hatched at the Aquarium this summer, their morning meal. Take a look!