Tag: penguins

Satellite Tracking Penguins

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We’ve done it with sharks in the Isle of Man, so why not have some fun tracking some penguins a bit more locally?

Dramatically billed (beaked?) as:

FIVE PENGUINS. SEVEN DAYS. ONE RACE AGAINST TIME.

it’s a publicity thing to highlight the plight of the African Penguin:

Since the turn of the 20th century we have lost 99% of the entire African Penguin population.

From 7 to 13 October we celebrate the perilous journey undertaken by five African Penguins.
Fitted with satellite tracking devices, we will follow the birds as they take to the high seas in a race to bulk up ahead of their fast approaching moulting season, where they will lose over half of their body weight.

The catch? The fish they depend on are becoming increasingly scarce. This means they must swim extreme distances to feed, all the while avoiding the impolite intentions of the Cape fur seal and unfair competition with fishing vessels. By determining how far the birds must forage to find food, these areas can be protected and so restore balance to the ecosystem as a whole.

One day in, and Siren “The Explorer” has gone furthest with 196.25km. Hank “The Underbird” is living up to his reputation, having covered “just” 122.55km.

It’s fun, it’s educational, it’s kinda quirky. Go see and share it on twitter: #ThePenguinRun

And now: PENGUINS OF DOOM

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After the PILCHARDS OF DOOM in Paarl story which broke earlier today and the hippo house invasions in Nigeria last week, now it’s a story of penguins in Betty’s Bay.

A colony of endangered African penguins has ruffled the feathers of an elderly Betty’s Bay resident, whose house is slowly being taken over by the critters.

Aww. Penguins! Cute! (Everyone loves penguins.)

79-year old Barbara Wallers has lived in her Stony Point home since 1947, adjacent to the oldest land-based colony of African penguins in South Africa, with around 5 000 birds.

Aww. Sweet old lady!
Got that mental image of your lovely grandma, all grey haired, cardigan clad with her tea and biscuits?
You have? Great. So what does Grandma think of the penguins?

“They shit all over the place. The other day I had one in here, running around, and it shit all over my bedroom. It just walked through the door and made a mess of my house,” Barbara Wallers told the Cape Argus.

I would have given anything – anything – to have been there when the reporter recorded that outburst. Brilliant.

The 79-year-old said the penguins waddled across her back garden, set up nests and kept her up the whole night with their squawking. According to the report, the birds snuck through gaps in incomplete fencing and into enticing gardens.

So what methods is sweet Barbara using to get rid of the penguins? Well, obviously, she’s spraying them with fertiliser.

No, I don’t understand this response either.

Is her hope to somehow encourage them to grow uncontrollably so that they can no longer fit through the gaps in the fencing? Or is she just anxious to somehow contravene the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act (No.10 of 2004) by applying a toxic substance to an endangered species. If that’s the case, rather feed them aging pilchards, Barbara. Those, as we discovered earlier, can be deadly.

Or maybe there’s a more scientific reason. Does the fertiliser make their shit easier to clean off bedroom carpets. Is that it, Barbara? I realise that penguin shit can be difficult to handle. I mentioned this paper here back in April 2007.

Either way, Barbara has 3 months of penguin invasion still to endure:

The Overstrand municipality promised it would complete the fencing by January.

They might be facing some very big penguins and a very angry Granny by then…

Smelly penguins are a thing of the past

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Here in the Cape, we’re lucky enough to have a couple of local colonies of the African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus) which one can pop along and visit, should one feel the need. Summer days are obviously nicest to spend in the sun, by the sea, getting up close and personal with these curious birds; with just one rather large drawback – the smell.

Penguins eat fish (which smells) and then they defaecate (which smells). It’s like smell². In short: penguins stink.

The penguins at Boulders Beach (so called because of the huge boulders there) and at Stony Point (so called because it’s all stony)* are a huge draw for the tourists, most of whom go home with a head full of wonderful memories, a camera full of wonderful photographs and a nose full of wonderfully fishy poo. Each time I go and visit Boulders, I am reminded of the need to do something about the dreadful whiff that greets me as I open the car door. And again when I arrive there.

But now I can, thanks to an offer from The Guardian in the UK. The UK isn’t known for its penguins, but there are, of course, several zoos and wildlife parks which have penguins in them. And I’m guessing that’s the market that The Guardian is trying to corner here, with the Penguin Steam Cleaner:

psc

They’ve even made it look a little bit penguinesque, so as not to frighten the birds on approach.

The Penguin Steam Cleaner features:

  • Continuous 1600 watt high-pressure (good for repeated penguin cleaning)
  • Steam exits at 105°C (bit warm, but penguins are well insulated)
  • Powerful jet nozzle, ideal for awkward spaces (beak, webbed feet, wingpits etc)

    • And it removes creased feathers. What more could you ask for?

    It’s expensive, but I reckon that the SanParks, who run Boulders, could get a better deal if they bought a job lot. After all – they have a whole load of penguins to clean.

    I will be pitching my idea to them later this week by getting one of these wonderful devices, “borrowing” a penguin and demonstrating the myriad of benefits a steam-cleaned penguin colony would bring to both their visitor numbers and their beleaguered olfactory systems.

    * I don’t make the rules.

    Of penguins and picnics…

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    I haven’t been on teh interwebs much today, but I would imagine that absolutely no-one in the blogosphere has mentioned the fact that it’s Valentines Day at all. And so once again, the responsibility of informing the world about these things falls on my shoulders. But it’s fine. I can manage. Honest.

    I had almost forgotten that the big day was coming up, but was fortuitously forewarned by a sudden and otherwise bewildering increase in the price of cut flowers. So I popped out and adopted a couple of penguins on a buy one get one free offer at SANCCOB (offer valid until end of February 2009), cos penguins is romantic: especially when kept at a suitable distance. They tend to get a bit smelly otherwise, mainly due to their ichthyophagous habits. So it’s handy to stay a whole credit card transaction away from the actual birds, cute, clumsy and cuddlable though they may appear.

    During the afternoon, we packed the kids, the pram, a picnic and the camera into the back of the car and popped just around the corner to Kirstenbosch. It may appear to the more attentive reader that we go to Kirstenbosch most weekends. And indeed, that does seem to be the case just lately. But there can be few more romantic places than Cape Town’s beautiful and almost completely penguin-free Botanical Gardens. Although initially, it seemed that we had the place to ourselves, walking on deeper into the somewhat repetitive fynbos after we had eaten, we found a myriad of courting couples.
    Fortunately, Kirstenbosch is pretty open plan, so there was no danger of coming across any naughtiness, but we sent the boy, happily and loudly singing about microwaves, ahead anyway, just to kill the mood should the mood be there. Safety first, dear reader.

           
    A Valentine’s Day Selection…

    And that was it – almost. Heart-shaped chocolate brownies and tea in front of Coupling on DVD and then a quick upload onto Flickr (actually, this is via the South African telecommunications system and someone needs to get the ADSL hamster to run faster in his little wheel up in Bloemfontein or wherever he’s kept so I’ll have to finish the Flickr stuff off tomorrow, ok?) and then I’ll wend my weary way up to bed, hoping and praying that the little one doesn’t start moaning about her erupting incisors again tonight.

    I wonder… do penguins have teeth…?