tagged w/ Penguins
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In the first complete survey of chinstrap penguins' breeding across Deception Island in the Antarctic, scientists have found a significant number of the chic birds have disappeared from the breeding grounds since the 1980s .http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48830751/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.UD7eu1JonIUIn the first complete survey of chinstrap penguins' breeding across Deception... more
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In the first complete survey of chinstrap penguins' breeding across Deception Island in the Antarctic, scientists have found a significant number of the chic birds have disappeared from the breeding grounds since the 1980s.In the first complete survey of chinstrap penguins' breeding across Deception... more
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‘Gay’ Penguin Pair Adopts a Baby Chick in China
Hot on the tail feathers of Canada's gay penguin controversy, a China zoo has given another same-sex penguin couple the opportunity to raise a chick — and so far, everyone seems to be doing just fine.
By Erin Skarda | @ErinLeighSkarda | December 7, 2011 | 37
PHOTO: A pair of African penguins walk together in Betty's Bay, South Africa
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First came Roy and Silo and their children’s book, And Tango Makes Three, and then Buddy and Pedro made headlines as a gay penguin couple who were being separated by the Toronto Zoo. Now, meet China’s same-sex penguin pair, 0310 and 067 — or as NewsFeed likes to call them, Adam and Steve.
Adam and Steve have a pretty lush life at Harbin Polar Land in northern China. While zookeepers at the Toronto Zoo were quick to separate their “gay” penguin couple for mating purposes, keepers at Harbin Polar Land embraced their eccentric penguins by not only giving them a same-sex wedding ceremony worthy of Leslie Knope, but also providing them with their very own baby chick to care for.
Adam and Steve had a history of stealing eggs from other more traditional couples during hatching season. So when keepers noticed a mother of recently hatched twins struggling with her parenting duties, they decided to give Adam and Steve the baby they were looking for.
While it might seem, well, different for a penguin chick to have two male parents, in fact, all penguins are known to have natural instincts for parenting, as males and females equally share in the responsibility to incubate and care for their chicks, before and after they’re born. For this reason, keepers at Harbin Polar Land are confident that Adam and Steve’s chick will grow up to be just like its penguin peers.
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Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/12/07/gay-penguin-pair-adopts-a-baby-chick-in-china/#ixzz1fyqPpW5Y
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‘Gay’ Penguin Pair Adopts a Baby Chick in China
Hot on... more
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The movie "Happy Feet 2" is out in theaters this week, but don't be fooled by those Hollywood producers. Brett Erlich explains that real life penguins are actually quite mean in this week's Viral Video Film School.
"Viral Video Film School" has been a recurring segment on Current TV since 2006. In each episode of VVFS, Professor Brett Erlich teaches you valuable skills in the discipline of viral video making. So sit down, take notes, and try not to piss him off. For more Brett: watch Current TV, visit http://current.com/vvfs, or follow him @BrettErlich.
Current Media, the Peabody-and Emmy Award-winning television and online network founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, features the very best in commentary andinformation programming. Home to the newly launched "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," as well as the celebrated documentary series "Vanguard," Current is dedicated to providing insightful analysis of important issues -- and digging deep into real stories to uncover how they affect real people. Current shines a light where other networks won't dare and boldly explores provocative subjects - opening minds, sparking conversations and forming deep connections with our viewers. Current creates the commentary and delivers the independent, unexpected point-of-view our viewers want and need to hear. On air and on all platforms, Current is media that matters.
Current is now available via cable and satellite TV in 60 million households in the US through distribution partners Comcast (Channel 107); Time Warner; DirecTV (Channel 358 nationwide); Dish Network (Channel 196 nationwide); Verizon and AT&T. In the UK and Ireland, Current is available on BSkyB (Channel 183) and Virgin Media (Channel 155). Viewers can also find Current online at http://current.com.The movie "Happy Feet 2" is out in theaters this week, but don't be... more
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I'm sure when dealing with predators like a Leopard Seal, you are always cautious of your every move. But what do you do when the Leopard Seal starts to give you food offerings as a sign of friendship?I'm sure when dealing with predators like a Leopard Seal, you are always cautious... more
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A new study confirms that a warming planet won't only impact species of penguins that live and feed in icy habitats. "A 30-year field study of Adélie (ice-loving) and chinstrap (ice-avoiding) penguins shows that populations of both species in the West Antarctic Peninsula and Scotia Sea have declined by respective averages of 2.9 and 4.3 percent per year for at least the last 10 years. Some colonies have decreased by more than 50 percent." Most of this decline seems to be caused by the impact that ice loss has on krill, the penguin's main food source.
link:http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/04/even-penguins-that-dont-live-on-ice-feel-impact-global-warming.phpA new study confirms that a warming planet won't only impact species of penguins... more
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There is a new culprit in the mysterious loss of Adélie and chinstrap penguins living along the West Antarctic Peninsula. Declines in krill, the small, shrimp-like crustacean that feeds many other animals in the Antarctic waters, may be starving young penguins, a long-term study indicates.
The krill, in turn, appear to be losing out, at least in part, because of declining winter sea ice, which provides them with algae to eat, the researchers say. This region has warmed markedly since the middle of the 20th century.
"This is one of the great examples of how very small changes — what a guy on the street might consider not-too-dramatic — can have tremendous impacts in certain systems," said Wayne Trivelpiece, a wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Read more
http://source.ly/10EhHThere is a new culprit in the mysterious loss of Adélie and chinstrap penguins... more
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A new condition is causing many penguin chicks to lose their feathers, with some victims dying as a result of the mysterious problem, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The condition, called "feather-loss disorder," appears to have emerged recently and is now affecting penguin colonies on both sides of the South Atlantic.
link: http://news.discovery.com/animals/penguins-are-mysteriously-losing-their-feathers-110407.htmlA new condition is causing many penguin chicks to lose their feathers, with some... more
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'Naked' penguins have scientists perplexed
Photo: A worker puts a wetsuit on a featherless penguin to keep her warm, earlier this week, at the Jurong Bird Park in Singapore.
April 8th, 2011
03:40 PM ET
A mysterious ailment is causing penguins to lose their feathers, according to researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
The condition, called feather-loss disorder, has been seen in penguin chicks in both sides of the Atlantic Ocean the past few years and is featured in a recent edition of the journal "Waterbirds," the release said.
While scientists don't know what could cause a penguin to go "naked," possible culprits include genetics, nutrient imbalances, thyroid disorders or germs.
“We need to conduct further study to determine the cause of the disorder and if this is in fact spreading to other penguin species,” Dee Boersma, who has studied Magellanic penguins, said in the release.
Feather loss in pet birds has long been a common ailment seen by pet stores and private owners, but researchers studying the penguins in the Atlantic said this is something different.
“The recent emergence of feather-loss disorder in wild bird populations suggests that the disorder is something new,” Mariana Varese, acting director of the society’s Latin America and Caribbean program, is quoted as saying in the release. “More study of this malady can help identify the root cause, which in turn will help illuminate possible solutions,” she said.
While the illness does not appear to be fatal, the sick birds, unlike their feathered counterparts, linger in the sun instead of seeking refuge from the midday heat. That behavior has led to several deaths, according to the release.
Disease is not the only recent peril that Atlantic penguins have faced.
A few weeks ago, volunteers from Nightingale Island, a British territory that is part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, mobilized to save tens of thousands of Northern Rockhopper penguins threatened by an oil spill.
It has been a surreal year in animal deaths. In January, tens of thousands of birds and fish were found dead in countries around the world.
Recently dolphins, some with oil inside them, have turned up dead in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists don’t know why.
"Even though they have oil on them, it may not be the cause of death," Blair Mase, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine mammal investigations coordinator, told CNN. "We want to look at the gamut of all the possibilities."'Naked' penguins have scientists perplexed
Photo: A worker puts a... more
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Penguin rescue operation under way after south Atlantic oil spill
By David Ariosto, CNN
April 2, 2011 9:36 p.m. EDT
The M.S. Oliva ran aground, fracturing its hull and ultimately splitting the vessel in two.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Rescuers are struggling to save tens of thousands of Northern Rockhopper penguins
The penguins are threatened by an oil spill following a shipwreck near remote island chain
At least 300 penguins have died since the spill, local officials say
(CNN) -- On an island chain located halfway between Africa and Argentina, local authorities say a massive penguin rescue operation is under way.
A mix of island officials and resident volunteers are struggling to save tens of thousands of Northern Rockhopper penguins threatened by an oil spill in the remote stretches of the south Atlantic, roughly 1,500 miles west of Cape Town, South Africa.
The islands' conservation director said at least 300 penguins have died after a cargo ship leaked thousands of tons of heavy oil, diesel fuel and soya bean near Nightingale Island, a British territory part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago.
"I've seen about 15 to 20 dead penguins just today," director Trevor Glass said.
Thousands more are covered in the ships' oil and diesel fuel, according to local officials and conservationists.
"The danger now is getting the rest of these penguins past that oil slick," Glass said.
The rescue operation began shortly after March 16, when the M.S. Oliva -- a Maltese-registered ship -- ran aground, fracturing its hull and ultimately splitting the vessel in two.
The ship was heading from Santos, Brazil, to Singapore and had been carrying 60,000 metric tons of soya beans and 1,500 metric tons of heavy fuel, according to islands' administrator Sean Burns and Transport Malta, the Maltese shipping authority.
The agency said in a statement that it "is investigating the grounding and subsequent complete hull failure" of the bulk carrier cargo ship.
The dramatic rescue of the ship's 22 crew members was captured on video, along with the spills' aftermath, which showed penguins soaked in heavy oil.
It was shot by an expedition team from an eco-tourism ship -- called SilverSea -- whose crew used inflatable boats to help ferry the sailors to safety, according to David E. Guggenheim of the Washington-based Ocean Foundation. Guggenheim witnessed the rescue aboard the vessel, called the Prince Albert II.
Since then, an oil sheen has surrounded the island chain, which officials say could lead to an environmental disaster.
Rescue workers, using inflatable watercraft and fishing vessels, are now ferrying penguins to a series of makeshift rehabilitation centers at the main island of Tristan da Cunha, according to Glass.
There, he added, conservationists and volunteers are working in an effort to nurse the blackened penguins back to health.
"We need help," said Katrine Herian, a spokeswoman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds who is also apart of the ongoing rescue effort.
"The priority is to get food into the birds as they are very hungry," she said. "We are trying locally caught fish and some are starting to take small half-inch squares of the food."
Herian noted that some of the islands' residents had emptied their personal freezers in an effort to help feed the animals.
By Friday, Glass said his team had corralled and transported a total of nearly 5,000 penguins, despite harsh winds and high seas that had hampered earlier rescue attempts.
But the timing of their task is daunting.
The shipwreck, having occurred at the end of the birds' molting season -- a period during which penguins shed their feathers, do not eat and largely stay out of the water -- left the birds "at their weakest possible state," Guggenheim explained. "They're very hungry."
The season's end also marks the beginning of a period when penguins re-enter the sea, now laden with heavy oil and soya beans.
In a written statement, Tristin da Cunha administrator Burns said it is unclear what the impact of the ship's cargo will have on the local marine environment, particularly "any long-term effect on the economically valuable fishing industry for crawfish, crayfish or Tristan Rock Lobster ... which is the mainstay of Tristan da Cunha's economy."
Fewer than 300 people live on the island chain, eclipsed by the its massive penguin population -- estimated at 150,000 -- which accounts for roughly 40 percent of the world's total, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a global network of conservationists.
The Northern Rockhopper penguin had been listed as "one of the world's most threatened species of penguin," according to the RSPB.Penguin rescue operation under way after south Atlantic oil spill
By David Ariosto,... more
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Penguins are aquatic and flightless bird that spends most of its life in the icy water. They rarely visit land except to raise their young. They have short legs, tall and torpedo-shaped bodies. On land they are able to stand upright, and because of their stature, they walk with a waddle. Penguins walk as fast as people.
Watch this crazy video in which film maker and writer Terry Jones discovers a colony of penguins, which are unlike any other penguins in the world.
http://funnyandspicy.com/rare-flying-penguins-%E2%80%93-bbc-documentary-filmPenguins are aquatic and flightless bird that spends most of its life in the icy... more
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The standard way of tagging penguins for science - putting bands around their flippers - affects their survival and reproduction, a study has found.
link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12162725The standard way of tagging penguins for science - putting bands around their flippers... more
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During SNOWGASM 2010 that stranded many people; our camera crew was no exception. They got stuck in Atlanta, so they decided to go see the sites. It was then that they found out that thousands of fish were being held against their will at the Georgia Aquarium. We dispatched Wolf Douglas to investigate and this is what he found.During SNOWGASM 2010 that stranded many people; our camera crew was no exception. They... more
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December 10, 2010
Tragedy in Black and White
By ELIZABETH ROYTE
FRASER’S PENGUINS
A Journey to the Future in Antarctica
By Fen Montaigne
Illustrated. 288 pp. A John Macrae Book/Henry Holt & Company. $26
In the austral summer of 2005-6, the veteran magazine journalist Fen Montaigne traveled to Palmer Station in Antarctica to work with the highly regarded polar ecologist Bill Fraser. For nearly five months, Montaigne gamely weighed and banded Adélie penguins and their predators, attached radio tags to feathers, dodged shooting streams of gack (giant-petrel vomit), sifted through guano in search of silverfish otoliths and reveled in the sensory delights of “the most alien and beautiful place on the planet.”
But this is no straightforward work of natural history with Fraser as heroic guide. It’s a morality tale, in which Fraser plays an unsociable Cassandra who’s entrusted his tidings to a sympathetic messenger. Luckily for readers, Montaigne has wrapped his portrait of a place on the brink of oblivion inside a penguin love fest.
Bill Fraser has been closely observing and recording the habits of birds near Palmer Station for 35 years. Such depth of experience allowed him to notice some troubling changes. Adélie penguin colonies, and the brown skuas that depend on them for sustenance, were rapidly declining; chinstrap penguins were moving in; and the population of fur seals and leopard seals was on the rise. What was going on?
Laboriously pondering factors biological and meteorological, Fraser eventually linked local Adélie declines with the cascade effects of warmer winter air and sea temperatures along the peninsula. Higher temperatures bring more snow, which delays the start of mating and nesting season, which results in smaller penguin chicks and a higher mortality rate. Warmer seas reduce the extent of sea ice, which krill (penguin food) depend on and Adélies rest upon before launching foraging trips into the Southern Ocean.
It gets worse: with adult penguins traveling farther to fill their bellies, chicks are left vulnerable to those skuas. Predators from hell, skuas rule Adélie colonies with “Mafia-like domination,” Montaigne writes, ripping the heads off chicks and eating the krill from their stomachs while they’re still alive.
Climate change is warming the poles faster than many other places on the planet, which means that polar scientists are coming to grips with these changes sooner than most anyone else. “Fraser’s Penguins,” portions of which appeared in The New Yorker, warns that what’s happening on the Antarctic Peninsula now is a taste of unsettling changes, elsewhere, to come. Should the West Antarctic Ice Sheet continue to melt, global sea levels could rise dramatically, in one NASA scientist’s opinion inundating Washington — and other coastal cities — by the end of this century.
For Fraser, the warming has a moral dimension. The Antarctic has been virtually untouched by man, and it’s a place where humans are, as many visitors over roughly 200 years of exploration have noted, entirely inconsequential. But now, the long carbonic reach of industrialized society is quickly wiping out one of the toughest creatures on earth, a species that’s hard-wired to the polar desert and cannot adapt.
Montaigne is a controlled writer, offering careful and clear explanations of matters technical and lexicographic, biologically microscopic and meteorologically global. But it’s his descriptive prowess, his ability to evoke lavender — and cobalt, magenta and violet — without waxing purple, that most impresses. Sounds and smells are skillfully conveyed: the flippers of two fighting Adélies sound like “the thumping of a stick on a carpet being cleaned.” While some team members compare the smell of a newly hatched penguin to Doritos, Montaigne associates the aroma with “the scent of my dog’s paws.” After being stalked and nearly pounced upon by a killer whale, Montaigne writes, “I was so amazed by this performance that I cannot remember exactly what the orca looked like.” Sometimes telling less reveals more. At other times, Montaigne gives thrilling, blow-by-blow accounts of bird battles and breakups.
Drama-wise, the penguins put the resident biologists to shame. This reader was slightly disappointed that Montaigne only briefly discusses cocktails served over thousand-year-old ice, diving into 34-degree water and celebrating an engagement with a four-foot-long penis ice sculpture that ejaculates cheap Champagne. The birding team is “collegial and free of tension”; one Andy of Mayberry type habitually says “We’re done-dee” when a field task is completed.
Instead, Montaigne lets the Adélies chew up the scenery — their epic migration, territorial squabbling, nesting-stone thievery, philandering, stoicism (Fraser has seen penguins almost cut in half by leopard seals stagger back to the colony to deliver their load of krill), indifference to squalor and enslavement to their squawking chicks (at least until the little darlings reach fledgling weight, at which point their parents turn their backs on the creatures and dive into the sea).
Fraser himself remains more of an enigma, a man who’s happiest spending long stretches alone in inhospitable places. Montaigne tells us that Fraser is not on speaking terms with another penguin scientist, and that he’s “not a man you would want to cross,” but we never see this play out. Still, one admires both the subject’s reserve and the author’s respect for it.
Adélie penguins, like other polar species, have always faced daunting challenges. But today, Adélies are confronting conditions for which nothing in their evolutionary history has prepared them. According to Fraser, the colonies around Palmer Station have reached a tipping point: they’ll be gone within his lifetime.
Despite this sobering message, “Fraser’s Penguins” leaves one feeling exhilarated — by these remarkable creatures, the landscape they inhabit and the scientists who’ve devoted their lives to studying both.
Elizabeth Royte’s latest book is “Bottlemania: Big Business, Local Springs, and the Battle Over America’s Drinking Water.”December 10, 2010
Tragedy in Black and White
By ELIZABETH ROYTE
FRASER’S... more
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“The Madagascar Penguins: A Christmas Caper” is a wickedly funny computer-animated 12-minute short film that showcases the adventures of four penguins, known as the Madagascar Penguins, who live in the Central Park Zoo and are trained as spies.
In the story, the youngest penguin on the team slips out of the zoo on Christmas Eve to find a present for a lonely polar bear. While roaming the streets of Manhattan, he is captured by an old lady, who purchases him as a chew toy for her vicious poodle. The other three penguins rescue the little one from the old lady’s apartment before it is too late. They have an intense fight against the evil poodle, and when they’re done, they blow the apartment’s door up with dynamite and leave the vicious poodle to take the blame for what the penguins have done.
This piece includes a number of colorful pictures, as well as the very funny animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/the-madagascar-penguins-a-christmas-caper/“The Madagascar Penguins: A Christmas Caper” is a wickedly funny... more
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Shimura Zoo decides to create a penguin robot (with added pipe) to herd a group of penguins to an awesome surprise. N'aawShimura Zoo decides to create a penguin robot (with added pipe) to herd a group of... more
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Fossilised feathers from a giant, extinct penguin reveal this species' unusual coloration and offer clues to how modern penguin feathers evolvedFossilised feathers from a giant, extinct penguin reveal this species' unusual... more
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The Streetview crew photographed a new zone, so now Google map users can have a mini expedition around Antarctica.
It looks like the crew photographed spots all around the Continent, which you can now get a good Ariel shot with a photographed view. So don't expect to be journeying on a set trail, but these early pictures from 2007 look fantastic showing penguins and scientific spots.
"On the company's blog yesterday, he wrote: "We hope this new imagery will help people in Ireland, Brazil, and even the penguins of Antarctica to navigate nearby, as well as enable people around the world to learn more about these areas.""-Telegraph
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104246426956801084815.00047cf949ea62f91bc6a&z=6The Streetview crew photographed a new zone, so now Google map users can have a mini... more
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