African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) have been on a downward decline. In 2010, African penguins were placed on the Red List by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) signifying that they are endangered (Weller et al., 2014). African penguins are endemic to Southern Africa ranging from Namibia to South Africa (Weller et al., 2014). At the start of the twentieth century, African penguins constituted 570,000 breeding pairs, but at the end of the century the population decreased to 26,000 pairs, and finally, in the 1990s, there was a total of 18,000 adult penguins (Weller et al., 2014). Robben Island has the most inhabitants of African Penguins, starting with the initiation of nine breeding pairs in 1983, growing to 8,500 pairs …show more content…
Due to the season, the reintegration back into the wild presents additional difficulties for the birds since the birds have a high rate of fidelity, 80-94% (Wolfaardt et al., 2009). Breeding success will be affected because one partner could have died, or they could have been relocated to different areas and unable to reunite. African penguins breed faster when they have been a couple that has been together for a long period of time. The pair bond is partly due to the fact that African penguins can live for up to twenty years so they mature later, and as a result they are involved parents with a low clutch size of one to two eggs (Wolfaardt et al., 2009). If the pair is broken, then a female penguin will most likely miss a breeding season from not having their original mate, or not being able to travel back to their original breeding grounds, which results in negative breeding success and a lower population density. Typically, first time breeding penguins are more likely to stray away from their native colony if they recognize that there is a depletion of resources in their native colony or if they need to find their first mate; in other words, they do not have as many ties to their native colony as older birds do (Barham et al., 2006). At Robben Island, the fledging of non oiled birds under normal conditions was around 60%, whereas the fledging rate from oiled parents was 40% showing …show more content…
A concern with the oil is that only a little bit of oil is needed on the feathers to cause complications. The oil will decrease the waterproofing ability of the feather leading to hypothermia and the inability for the penguin to hold in heat (Wolfaardt et al., 2009). Oil can affect the penguins’ mucous membranes, such as the eyes, causing blindness, while also breaking down red blood cells leading to anemia and poor vitamin absorption (Bent, 2010). Although there are measures being taken to reduce damage to the penguin, the rescue attempt will not help the damage that has been done to the birds’ internal organs such as the liver, and the petroleum might also inhibit the production of certain hormones important for reproduction (Wolfaardt et al.,
After the blocks died out, pony bead seeds grew on the island. These very tiny seeds caused some difficulty for the birds studied. All finches, with the exception of Tosserus saladis, increased slight to moderately.
On year 6, the rain level was in the right range for the whooping crane population, with the amount of rainfall at 8.1 cm, and the snowfall at 4.6 cm. This great weather resulted in 8 nests, 8 eggs laid, and 4 eggs hatched. It might not seem like a major population growth, but with this specific endangered species, its population growth isn’t as quick as many other species. This was the main reason why it brought the attention to many officials to protect the whooping cranes from extinction. In this particular year, the hatching success rate was at a 50%, which is surprising because this year was the one who brought up the population well, into year 7. The amount of rainfall in year 7 was 7.4cm, while the snowfall was 0.0cm. Once again, these were perfect conditions for the whooping cranes. This caused the overall crane population (including chicks), to increase by 8 cranes, from year 6 to year 7. The hatching success rate was a high of 83%, the highest it has ever been in the 16 years of data! You can obviously see here that these low precipitation conditions are very beneficial to the overall growth of this
The finch hybrids before the El Niño of 1983, two different species did not mate each other but during the child, a scandens mated with a fortis and produced four fledgings.
When the Atlantic Puffin’s young becomes mature enough to leave the nest, it will wait until night to emerge. Often its first time out of the nest, the young puffin becomes acclimated to its surroundings and begins to descend the perilous cliff face. Once it reaches the bottom, it will quickly travel out to sea. It leaves the island alone and will not return to land for two to three years.
will make you think, for example, the Penguin is put into a Zoo as a
Like I said moments ago, the penguin is known to be witty, meticulous, inscrutable and they of course live on ice! First of all, I can be witty if I want to, and I spend half of my time on the ice. By that, I mean at the arena playing or practicing ringette. Ringette is a part of me and it always will be. I love the sound of my skate edge cutting into the ice. In addition to that, I love the way snow sprays off my skate when I make a quick stop as well. These are just some of the way that I can relate to a penguin. In conclusion to this paragraph, I am most like a penguin because I often enjoy the cold
These penguins lived after the Castastrophic event “Cretaceuous” that demolished the dinosaurs and many other species. Based on the DNA analyses and avaiable evidence of modern birds, we think the modern bird- lineages, including penguins, some how managed to survive through the Cretaceuous. Also it’s not shocking these fossils were found in New Zeland. The South Pacific and Southern oceans were free of predatory mammals, had abundant food, and had space for Penguins to breed. But the Southern Pacific is not the only area where Penguins inhabit. Many of modern penguins “Aptrenodytes” are located in the Antarctic. Recenelty it was discovered that there was a over looked feature on the surface of the fossil penguins flipper bone. These grooves were easily missed because the look was similar to tendons and muscles in the same area. It was discovered that these grooves were blood vessels that make up a counter current heat exchanger called “humeral arterial plexus” which allows penguins to limit the heat loss through the flippers. Also it helped Penguins maintain their core body temperature in cold water allowing them to survive long journeys in the cold waters. Although Penguins have luckily been able develop these traits to survive the dramatic shifts in climate, the world population can not mistake their success as resilience towards global warming.
Peregrine falcons are found in every single part of the world except Antarctica. They were
Large amount of fish were reported dead in the thick brown mess. Pelicans and other bird where seen completely covered black which made their lives extremely hard. A small amount of oil on the birds feathers could leave the animal flightless and made it hard to swim and hunt for food. Scientists have discovered that pelicans nesting in Minnesota have been affected indirectly. These birds migrate to the Gulf every winter and were feeding on fish the winter after the spill occurred. They later went back to Minnesota to breed. Scientists saw that the eggs the birds were laying contained a chemical compound from the petroleum and dispersants. This may lead to reproductive problems down the road. The oil also killed an expediential amount of microscopic organisms including fish larvae. With these large amounts of eggs killed at once, the spill may have created gaps in the food chain. And the oil spill, even years later, still has lingering effects on the wildlife. There are many reports of fish that were born with deformities, and others that talk about groups of shrimp born without eyes. The impact of the oil spill stretches over 1,000 miles across the
Microevolution occurs when a species has almost insignificant genetic changes over time. The studies performed on these small genetic changes are usually tested over very short time periods (decades to a few hundred years). This is because it is difficult to find ancient DNA specimens to compare to the modern species. However, because of the frigid and preserving terrain Adelie penguins are the perfect research candidate. This specie of penguin lives, breeds, and dies all in the same location of their ancestors before them; leaving plenty of ancient remains. The researchers compared the DNA of the ancient (6,000-year-old penguins) to the modern descendants. This comparison revealed that some of the Adelie penguin genes became longer over time
“And all the children who came to the zoo could see Tango and her two fathers playing in the penguin house…” (Richardson). This scene comes from the children’s book, And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. This excerpt briefly tells that the theme of this story is about an unorthodox family structure that consists of a homosexual couple. Richard and Parnell use this picture book aimed for four to eight year olds to simply describe the real love story of two penguins, Silo and Roy, who can be found in New York’s Central Park Zoo. “Roy and Silo are both boys. However, they did everything together,” like a couple would do and they, “didn’t spend much time with the girl penguins.” When mating season came, they built a nest and tried to hatch an egg, but obviously, that was impossible. The zookeeper noticed this and brought Silo and Roy an egg from another couple that would not be able to take care of both the eggs they had. Eventually, Silo and Roy hatch a beautiful chick which the zookeeper named Tango; this created their little happy family.
Because of breeding, such endangered species, two examples of which being the golden lion tamarin and the Przewalski’s wild horse, have improved in numbers significantly (Smithsonian). Although they are bred in captivity, it protects and preserves the animals from s...
The other penguins live on small sandy islands, but all penguins must live near a body of water to hunt for food. Their food consist of fish krill squid and crustaceans. Penguins mainly live along the coastal regions of South America, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. People still don’t know everything about penguins but we start to learn more about them as we study them. There is some spots we don’t know if its 100% true or fake. This is way people argue so much about them because we still don’t know everything about them. In the mid 1800s people found fossils that looked like penguins. These fossils were studied by the top scientist around the world. The scientist are coming to a conclusion that penguins have been on earth for more than 60 million years.Scientist believe that penguins evolved from earlier birds in order to survive. They
Climate change is the result of global warming and is a world-wide issue that is proving a threat to many living organisms. The Adélie end Emperor penguin which inhabit the Antarctic continent, are species of penguin that can be seen at most at risk of climate change due to this unnatural rise in global temperatures.
In our world today we have approximately 26,021 endangered species. Endangered species are organisms that may possible become extinct. The term 'endangered species' refers to all species that fits this description. However some conservation biologists and scientists normally use the term ‘endangered species’ to refer to species that are put on the IUCN(International Union for Conservation of Nature)Red List. Many factors can be looked at when considering the conservation status of a species. Factors such as human threats or environmental threats can cause a species to become endangered.