NATURAL HISTORY AND CONSERVATION

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Penguins
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Penguins
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Penguins
NATURAL HISTORY AND CONSERVATION
Edited by
Pablo Garcia borboroGlu
and
P. Dee boersma
A SAMUEL AND ALTHEA STROUM BOOK
university of WashinGton Press
Seattle & London
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2013 by the University of Washington Press
Printed and bound in Korea
Design by Tomas Eykemans
Composed in Warnock, typeface designed by Robert Slimbach
Display type set in Bodoni, designed by Morris Fuller Benton
Headings set in Trade Gothic, designed by Jackson Burke
16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
University of Washington Press
Po Box 50096, Seattle, Wa 98145, Usa
www.washington.edu/uwpress
Te paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi Z39.481984.
Complete cataloging information for this title
is available from the Library of Congress.
isBn 978-0-295-99284-6
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.
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Many years of work, efort,
and persistence reside in this book,
which we hope will improve the world
for penguins and for people.
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I. LARGE PENGUINS
GENUS APTENODYTES
1. King Penguin
(Aptenodytes patagonicus) 7
2. Emperor Penguin
(Aptenodytes forsteri) 23
II. BRUSH-TAILED PENGUINS
GENUS PYGOSCELIS
3. Adlie Penguin
(Pygoscelis adeliae) 37
4. Chinstrap Penguin
(Pygoscelis antarctica) 59
5. Gentoo Penguin
(Pygoscelis papua) 73

III. YELLOW-EYED PENGUIN
GENUS MEGADYPTES
6. Yellow-Eyed Penguin
(Megadyptes antipodes) 91
Contents
Global Penguin Society viii
Introduction 3
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IV. CRESTED PENGUINS
GENUS EUDYPTES
7. Southern Rockhopper Penguin
(Eudyptes chrysocome) 113
8. Northern Rockhopper Penguin
(Eudyptes moseleyi) 131
9. Erect-Crested Penguin
(Eudyptes sclateri) 145
10. Fiordland Penguin
(Eudyptes pachyrhynchus) 153
11. Snares Penguin
(Eudyptes robustus) 169
12. Macaroni Penguin
(Eudyptes chrysolophus) and
Royal Penguin
(Eudyptes schlegeli) 185
V. BANDED PENGUINS
GENUS SPHENISCUS
13. African Penguin
(Spheniscus demersus) 211
14. Magellanic Penguin
(Spheniscus magellanicus) 233
15. Humboldt Penguin
(Spheniscus humboldti) 265
16. Galpagos Penguin
(Spheniscus mendiculus) 285
VI. LITTLE (OR BLUE) PENGUIN
GENUS EUDYPTULA
17. Little Penguin
(Eudyptula minor) 305
Conclusion 321
Acknowledgments 325
Contributors 327
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viii
Te Global Penguin Society (GPS) is an international
alliance-building organization that promotes the pro-
tection of the worlds penguin species through sci-
ence, 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 syner-
gistically, GPS accelerates and enhances penguin and
ocean conservation eforts.
Penguins are conservation subjects as well as tools
for ocean conservation. Te 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
makers improve management and educate local com-
munities about the value of penguins.
Te Global Penguin Society links local stakeholders
to policy change using penguins. It provides opportuni-
ties 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 pen-
guins and people. In brief, the Global Penguin Society
encourages synergy, strategy, and integration and pro-
vides a unifed vision to enhance the scope of penguin
conservation achievements.
www.globalpenguinsociety.org
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Penguins
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3
Introduction
Penguins are Southern Hemisphere seabirds. Tey are
athletic, interesting, and ancient. Some Magellanic pen-
guins migrate more than 2,400 miles from the Strait of
Magellan in Argentina to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Magel-
lanic penguins can travel more than 170 kilometers in
a day, and do so under their own powerno 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 Antarc-
tica, where they keep their eggs warm by holding them
on their feet while enduring temperatures as cold as 30
to 40
o
C with the wind blowing 40 meters per second.
Humans couldnt survive for long in those conditions.
If that doesnt 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. Tey vary in
size from the little penguin, which weighs just about
1 kilogram and is a shallow diver, to the emperor pen-
guin, which weighs up to 40 kilograms and can dive 500
meters and hold its breath for 23 minutes. In compari-
son, the record dive for a human is 101 meters in 4.13
minutes. Penguin species live in environments ranging
from the tropics of the Galpagos Islands to frozen Ant-
arctica and across islands and continents in the Southern
Hemisphere. Tey 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. Tey nest
in deserts, in forests, on bare rock, in burrows, under
bushes, under trees, and in the open.
Fossils suggest that penguins fourished between 10
and 40 million years ago, and the oldest fossil is about 55
million years old. Teir origins, however, may be rooted
in the Cretaceous period, 140 to 65 million years ago,
when their ancestor was a fying 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 mor-
phological and molecular knowledge. Te six genera
of living penguins (Aptenodytes, Eudyptes, Eudyptula,
Megadyptes, Pygoscelis, and Spheniscus) are clearly
defned, and their classifcation has stood the test of
time. Te relationship between species within and out-
side their genera is not so fxed.
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 com-
mon and scientifc 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 eforts for the species. We use the
same order in each chapter. Te material presented should
inform human action, whether it is research, policy, or
on-the-ground conservation. Te editors hope this book
will do more than inform you about penguins. First we
must know, then understand, and, fnally, 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 Antarc-
tic explorers depended on them for food, businessmen
harvested tens of thousands of them for their oil, and
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4 INTRODUCTION
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 Treatened Species. Te threat
of human harvest has decreased, but climate variation,
fshing, habitat modifcation, 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. Te
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 docu-
mentary of all time, features emperor penguins. Whether
a person turns to the movies or childrens books, pen-
guins fgure signifcantly in human culture. Tis book
details the lives of the worlds penguins. A total of 49
researchers from 12 countries on 5 continents partici-
pated in this efort. Tis is the frst book to bring the
worlds experts together to share what they know about
each species.
Te book is a milestone for the Global Penguin Soci-
ety (GPS), a group dedicated to the well-being of pen-
guins. Mitigating and managing the threats to penguins
on local, regional, and global scales require funding and
social networking. Te 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. Teir natural
charisma makes them the perfect ambassadors to advo-
cate for the health of our oceans and coasts.
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