Magellanic Penguin Project

Background

The Magellanic penguin project was started in 1982 as a result of a Japanese company's intention to harvest Magellanic penguins and turn them into golf gloves, meat and oil. The Wildlife Conservation Society with the Province of Chubut through the office of tourism entered into a joint agreement to protect the largest Magellanic penguin colony in the world and study the diversity of wildlife at Punta Tombo. The project provides recommendations to the Province to educate tourists on conservation problems and to improve the visitor experience of the more than 50,000 people that visit each year. Based at the provincial reserve at Punta Tombo, Argentina a small group of researchers under the direction of Dr. Dee Boersma, Professor of Biology at the University of Washington, follow individual penguins, monitor the colony and develop the data needed to plan effective conservation efforts, as well as try and understand the importance of penguins as indicators of global climate change and the health of the environment.

Research at Punta Tombo (link to map)

For the last two decades Dr. Boersma and her volunteers have identified penguins at Punta Tombo with a nametags in the form of flipper bands. Each penguin get a small metal band with a number on it, so as researchers walk the beaches recording data, they can tell who's who. The project has banded over 50,000 birds since 1983.

Penguins are at the breeding colony during the spring and summer, from September to March, when researchers visit each nest and determine how each couple does raising their chicks. A few birds, who have a reputation being good 'Dads', get a satellite tag so that we can see where the male travels when he searches for food. By studying penguins while they are at sea we are able to learn where they go and why some birds are successful and others unsuccessful at rearing chicks.

The Human Aspect

For the most part, humans don't directly affect the penguin population at Punta Tombo, simply because the penguins live in a reserve about 120 km by dirt road from the nearest city. Tourists can walk around on marked trails among the penguins. Our studies show that the penguins in the area regularly visited are 'tamer' allowing people to approach closely without exhibiting fear or modifying their behavior. Reproductive success of penguins in the tourist trail appears similar to other areas of the colony without tourists. Because of the careful control of tourists, penguins and tourism seem to be compatible providing people an opportunity to learn about penguins and to help with their conservation. However, people are a threat to penguins through their degradation of the oceans.

Threats

The penguins living in the colony at Punta Tombo face threats related to the poor health of the ocean. Fishing boats are a big threat because penguins get caught nets. We know little about how much competition for food there is between fishing boats and penguins, however, as humans continue to 'vacuum' the ocean and fish down the food chain competition can only become more significant. In 2001 about 30 shrimp boats were spotted offshore at Punta Tombo four nights in a row. The morning they left the beach was littered with plastic, propane tanks, and cardboard. Researchers collected an entire truckload of garbage off the 100 meters of coast where tourists visit.

Along with fishing, oil is also a threat to the penguins at Punta Tombo. In the early 1980s we estimated about 42,000 penguins died each year because of the dumping of ballast water contaminated with petroleum. Tankers fill their oil tanks with water when they were empty to help weigh down the ship and empty the oily water into the ocean before they arriving at port to take on petroleum. If a penguin swims into petroleum floating on the ocean, the oil destroys the insulating properties of the penguins' feathers. The oil may also be ingested when a penguin preens it feathers and can cause lesions in their stomach and depress their immune system. Even a small spot of oil can decrease their ability to thermo regulate and digest their food. Penguins that get oiled often head to shore because they are warmer on land. They eventually starve to death because there is no food for them on land. Over the last decade, the number of oiled birds on the beaches of Punta Tombo has dropped because of a reduction in illegal dumping of ballast wastewater and changes in tanker lanes. Efforts to improve the health of our oceans must continue. Humans as well as penguins need a healthy ocean for a healthy life.

Important Next Steps

Long term studies such as this one are important in helping us understand what effects humans are having on the environment and training the next generation of conservation biologists. Some of the changes we're seeing in the penguin populations are subtle, and would go undetected in a shorter study. Some of the questions we are answering include: How does climate variation changes foraging patterns? And, Do couples stay together for the 6 months they are at sea? We know that changes in penguin behavior can tell us when something is happening in the environment. What exactly they are telling us, unfortunately, is becoming clear. The number of breeding pairs of Magellanic penguins at Punta Tombo has declined about 20% in 15 years. We don't have much time to ignore the message. For the next decade we will be using the penguins to help in making human ocean uses more compatible with wildlife. One of the first steps is to zone the South Atlantic Ocean with wildlife in mind, and reduce the conflicts between people and wildlife.