A zoo soap opera: Gay penguins steal nest with eggs from lesbian couple

DutchNews, October 20, 2020 

The would-be fathers. Photo: Dierenpark Amersfoort

A gay penguin couple at Amersfoort’s Dierenpark zoo, who hit the international headlines last year when they stole an egg to hatch, have gone a step further this year by stealing the complete nest of another couple – who happen to be a lesbian duo. 

Last year the same African penguin couple stole an egg from another penguin family, ‘acquiring’ it at a moment when no-one was looking.That egg failed to hatch and the couple remained childless – and are likely to remain so, for now at least. 

The couple are taking in it in turns to sit on the eggs and keep them warm, while the other forages for food. However, the eggs are unlikely to hatch because they have probably not been fertilised, given they were laid by the lesbian couple, says zoo keeper Sander Drost. 

Drost says the would-be fathers are a dominant couple within the 17-strong group in penguin enclosure. ‘Each couple in the enclosure have their own shelter but this couple has commandeered two,’ he told RTV Utrecht earlier this year. 

Penguins breed twice a year and the ousted females will probably build a new nest shortly, the zoo told DutchNews.nl. Homosexuality is fairly common in penguins and there have been various other reports of them fostering chicks.

Gay penguins at Amersfoort zoo steal egg and and try to hatch it

DutchNews, November 14, 2019 

A file photo of African penguins. Photo: Depositphotos.com

A gay penguin couple in Amersfoort’s DierenPark zoo have stolen an egg from another penguin family and are now trying to hatch it, the zoo said on Thursday. 

The two African penguins ‘acquired’ the egg at a moment when no-one was looking, the zoo said. 

No-one knows if the egg they stole has been fertilised, but the hatching season is now in full swing. ‘The gay couple are looking after the egg very well and take turns in keeping it warm,’ zoo keeper Marc Belt said.

‘Homosexuality is fairly common in penguins, but what makes this couple remarkable is that they have gotten hold of an egg.’ 

The couple whose egg was stolen have since produced a new one, Belt said. 

This summer, officials at Berlin zoo gave a gay couple of King penguins an egg to hatch after they tried it earlier with a stone and a dead fish.

Tiny penguin's clean bill of health after epic NZ-Australia swim

France24 – AFP, 18 September 2019

Sydney (AFP) - A tiny penguin that made the mammoth journey from New Zealand to Australia has been nursed back to health and released into the wild -- in the hope it will find its own way home.

The emaciated Fiordland penguin was found struggling on rocks near Lorne, south of Melbourne, about 2,500km (1,500 miles) from its native habitat of New Zealand.

Melbourne Zoo head of veterinary services Michael Lynch said the bird was so underweight it had to be gradually reintroduced to food and the water over several weeks.

"Over time it began to put on weight again," he said.

"We then started to reintroduce it to water when it was strong enough to swim to help build up some muscle."

Fiordland penguins are known to swim large distances to forage for food, sometimes even spending so long in the ocean that they grow barnacles on their tails.

They are classified as a threatened species, with an estimated 5,000 left in the wild.

After two months of care it earned a bill of good health this month. It has now been microchipped and released at a beach on Phillip Island, off the Victoria state coast.

"It's a tough life out there in the ocean, but we're hopeful this penguin will find its way back to New Zealand and eventually breed," Lynch said.

"We've given it every chance to do so."

Rare albino penguin makes debut at Polish zoo

Yahoo – AFP, March 22, 2019

The albino penguin is believed to be the only one of its kind in captivity (AFP
Photo/Maciej KOSYCARZ)

Warsaw (AFP) - A rare three-month-old albino penguin made its first public appearance at a zoo in the Polish Baltic port city of Gdansk, where its keepers claim it is the only one of its kind in captivity.

The all-white African black-foot penguin was born on December 14, but zoo staff decided to keep its arrival secret as they were unsure the vulnerable newborn would survive.

Zoo staff are waiting until they are able to determine its sex to name the youngster.

"As far as we know, there is no other such specimen alive (in captivity) in the world," Michal Targowski, director of the Gdansk Zoo, told the TVN24 commercial news channel.

"The baby is active, in good health, eats well and, what's very important, its parents are taking very good care of it," Targowski said.

To ensure its safety, the youngster is being kept with a small group of six adults, including its parents, part of a group of 70 penguins living at the Gdansk Zoo.

"We're really doting on him so that nothing bad happens to him", Targowski, explaining that other penguins in the troop could take exception to the baby's unique look and harm it.

African black-footed penguins, also known as jackass penguins due to their braying noise, have been rated as endangered since 2010 after suffering from commercial fishing, shortage of prey and pollution.

The incredible marathon of New Zealand Tawaki penguins

Yahoo – AFP, Ivan Couronne, August 29, 2018

A Fiordland penguins - as pictured here by researcher Thomas Mattern - will swim
with its pack from its home in New Zealand halfway to Antarctica and back
each December (AFP Photo/Thomas MATTERN)

Washington (AFP) - Each year in December, penguins with long blonde eyebrows swim away from the shores of New Zealand for a two-month marathon swim halfway to Antarctica and back.

The breathtaking distance was recorded by researchers, who for the first time managed to track the birds.

Penguins, universally adored and the stars of cartoons, are actually not well studied.

One third of all penguin species live in New Zealand, where they are part of the landscape, mostly in the wilder south. Nevertheless most penguin species are considered vulnerable or endangered.

Until now it was unclear where one penguin species -- the Fiordland crested penguin (Eudyptes pachyrhynchus) -- migrated each year in search of food.

Zoologists assumed that they stayed near the coast. To find out, researchers with the Tawaki Project -- which uses the bird's local name -- attached satellite tracking tags to 20 penguins and followed their migration daily.

"My first reaction was there's something wrong with the data," said Thomas Mattern, a research fellow in Department of Zoology, University of Otago, New Zealand and the project director.

"Then I was just puzzled, I was completely flabbergasted -- where are they going, when will they stop?"

The penguins swam halfway to Antarctica, in areas where the warm northern waters collide with the cold waters of the south. Then they swam back New Zealand.

Round trip, a female traveled 6,801 kilometers (4,226 miles) in 67 days. A male swam 5,597 kilometers (3,478 miles) in 77 days.

The complete data relates to only five animals, because the tags seem to have detached from the 15 others being tracked during their trip.

This new information confirms that penguins are among the most extraordinary vertebrate swimmers on the planet.

According to Mattern, the Russians had even studied the hydrodynamics of penguin feathers to mimic it for their submarines.

The penguin study was published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS One.

A Humboldt penguin (Spheniscus humboldti), native to the coasts of Chile and 

Peru, at a zoo in Bremerhaven, Germany (AFP Photo/Patrik STOLLARZ)

Mysterious penguins

Researchers had a tough time finding funding for their project. Each tag costs between $1,500 and $2,000. And according to Mattern, research like this "has completely fallen off of fashion."

"If you seek academic funding, it has to be these days a topic that is en vogue, be it ancient DNA or microbiology," Mattern said.

"Field studies that conduct baseline research are often considered to be too descriptive and boring."

Instead, non-governmental organizations and the public helped fund the research.

Why focus on penguin migration in the first place?

"Penguins are seabirds, they spend up to 80 percent of their life out in the ocean, and we have not the faintest idea of what they do there," Mattern said.

While the birds are suspected to be in decline, "in order to do something about that, you have to know what is affecting the species."

The warming of the oceans, tourism and fishing probably affects the penguins, but effects on their lives still need to be studied scientifically.

"Penguins are in trouble around the globe, and mostly it's because there's problems in changes in the ocean," said P. Dee Boersma, a biologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, and an expert in South American penguins.

Boersma, who did not participate in the project, noted that the warming climate has not been good for penguins.

"The other big problem is the competition with fisheries," Boersma said.

African penguins used to number in the millions, now they're down to about 30,000, she said. Why? "Because they don't have any food to eat, because humans are taking almost all of the sardines," he said.

The unresolved mystery is why the Tawaki penguins swim so far, especially when the costal waters of New Zealand in December are swarming with fish and other food.

Scientists believe that this could be an instinct inherited from an ancestral species of penguins that lived further south, before populating New Zealand.

To answer this question further research is needed -- if possible with international funding.

"The penguins do not belong to New Zealanders or Australians, it is the whole of humanity who is responsible for it," Mattern said.

1.5 million penguins discovered on remote Antarctic islands

Yahoo – AFP, Mariëtte Le Roux, March 2, 2018

A handout picture from Stony Brook University/Louisiana State University shows
an Adelie penguin on the Danger Islands (AFP Photo/Rachael Herman)

Paris (AFP) - A thriving hotspot of some 1.5 million Adelie penguins has been discovered on the remote Danger Islands in the east Antarctic, surprised scientists announced Friday.

Just 160 kilometres (100 miles) away in the west Antarctic, the same species is in decline due to sea ice melt blamed on global warming, they said.

The first complete census revealed that the Danger Islands host more than 750,000 breeding pairs of Adelie penguins, more than the rest of the Antarctic Peninsula region combined, the team reported in the journal Scientific Reports.

It included the third and fourth-largest Adelie penguin colonies in the world.

The find "is certainly surprising and it has real consequences for how we manage this region," study co-author Heather Lynch of Stony Brook University told AFP.

The islands, which lie at the tip of Antarctica nearest South America, have rarely been visited, and the new discovery was thanks to Earth-monitoring satellites, the team from America, Britain and France, said.

"This is called the Danger Islands for a reason," explained Lynch.

This handout photo released by WHOI/MIT shows an aerial view of an Adelie 

penguin breeding colony on the Danger Islands (AFP Photo/Thomas Sayre-McCord)

"The area is covered by heavy sea ice most of the year, and even in the height of summer it is difficult to get into this region to do surveys."

'Very lucky'

Evidence of the previously-unknown penguin colony first emerged in data from the Landsat Earth-monitoring satellites run by NASA and the US Geological Survey.

Lynch and her team "then went and looked at higher resolution commercial imagery to confirm the guano staining that our algorithms had picked up in the Landsat imagery," she said.

When the Landsat data originally suggested the presence of hundreds of thousands of penguins on the islands, she thought it "was a mistake".

"We were surprised to find so many penguins on these islands, especially because some of these islands were not known to have penguins."

Then followed a field expedition for a headcount.

In the west Antarctic, Adelie penguins are in decline due to sea ice melt 

blamed on global warming (AFP Photo/MARK RALSTON)

"We were... very lucky to have a window of time where the sea ice moved out and we could get a yacht in," said Lynch.

The Danger Islands, said the team, has felt the ravages of climate change less than western Antarctic zones, and knew very little human activity.

But it may need protection from overfishing nevertheless. Krill, an Adelie staple, is caught in the area.

"The most important implication of this work is related to the design of Marine Protected Areas in the region," said Lynch.

"Now that we know this tiny island group is so important, it can be considered for further protection from fishing."

Surprised scientists find 1.5 million Adelie penguins, a species fast declining in parts of the world, on remote islands off the Antarctic Peninsula https://t.co/8IJXUOP0u2 pic.twitter.com/cuXn52jXNX

— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 2, 2018

Related Article:

"Around the Horn" - (a message from Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

“… Now, in the process of all of this, there's going to be renewed interest in Antarctica, and you're going to find some interesting things about the land under the ice. The topography of the land under the ice does not match the topography of the ice above. Some astonishing shapes will be revealed when you map the actual land under the ice. Points of mountains are going to be revealed, giving an entire different idea of what Antarctica might have been and what its purpose really is. The continent that is uninhabitable by Human Beings may very well be the engine of life for Human Beings. And I will leave it at that. …”

Chile penguins win battle in war against mine

Yahoo – AFP, Giovanna FLEITAS, 13 October 2017

They may be less than a meter tall but they have conquered a Goliath: Chile's vulnerable Humboldt penguins have thwarted -- for now at least -- a billion dollar mining project in one of the country's most depressed regions.

The rare species is only found on the coasts of Peru and Chile, which has created the National Humboldt Penguin Reserve -- but it's also an area rich in natural resources which has put the animals on a collision course with mining giant Andes Iron and their $2.5 billion project.

Conservationists jumped to their defense when the company unveiled plans to construct a huge open-cast mine and a port near the reserve, 600 kilometers (250 miles) north of Santiago.

The Dominga mine would have produced 12 million tonnes of iron ore a year, making it the biggest of its kind in the country, and 150,000 tonnes of copper.

For months it made headlines amid a bitter national debate over economic development and environmental conservation that was fought out on social media and split the socialist government of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

The project was rejected in March by an environmental commission but Andes Iron appealed the ruling.

In August, a special cabinet committee which included the energy and mines, health and environment ministers, finally vetoed the project citing of a lack of guarantees for the penguins.

Humboldts have been protected here since 1990, when the reserve was set up to encompass the islands of Dama, Choros and Gaviota, a stunning nature trail beloved of whale, sea-lion and penguin watchers.

Thousands of jobs

Rodrigo Flores, vice-president of the fisherman's union in nearby Punta Choros, a jumping off point for tours of the islands, welcomed the move.

"Dominga is an invasive project, for nature and for society," he told AFP. "It is incompatible with a place considered a hotspot of biodiversity at the global level."

But that's not everyone's view.

Joyce Aguirre is one of the project's staunch defenders in the local community of La Higuera.

"Every project has an impact," she said, arguing that the government had a duty to come down on the side of jobs.

"We want to be vigilant and watch what's going to happen. We are the ones who live here and we would never want to damage the area."

The region is among the most underdeveloped in Chile and many locals lament the loss of thousands of jobs promised under the plan.

Conservation NGO Oceana warned of the risks to the ecosystem from the mine, whose port terminal was set to be built only 30 kilometers away from the island of Choros.

The conservation group argued that increased shipping traffic, with its greater risk of oil spills, would do untold harm to a known cetacean migrant route and pristine waters that provide a rich food source to several vulnerable species including the sea otter.

"I've been diving in other areas and I've seen that residue from mining activity is noticeable on the ocean bottom, killing all existing life," said fisherman Mauricio Carrasco. "That's what we're afraid of."

Constant pressure on reserve

In Punta Choros, 160 families in the fishing community play an official role in watching over the penguin reserve, an area of 880 hectares which is home to 80 percent of the species.

Recent studies have shown the water to be pristine, largely due to conservation efforts.

But the reserve "is constantly under threat from mega-projects," warned Liliana Yanes, regional director of the National Forestry Office in Coquimbo.

French giant Suez was forced to pull out of a project to build a power plant in Barrancones, near Choros, in 2010. The then-president Sebastian Pinera demanded that the power plant be built elsewhere after thousands of people protested.

Around 60 kilometers away in the town of La Serena, part of the population has come out strongly against the U-turn on the Dominga project.

"We feel the disappointment, as Chileans, because the government is clipping our wings," said Marta Arancibia, adding that the region was one of the poorest in Chile.

She is a member of a residents association which signed an agreement with Andes Iron in which they promised to invest heavily in local education, healthcare and potable water projects.

"The state hasn't been present for us over the last 20 years, so we see these private enterprise projects as opportunities," said Aguirre, who also signed the agreement.

Andes Iron has signalled its intention to continue the battle in Chile's environmental court and if necessary, take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Round one to the plucky penguins, though it seems the war has only started.

Chile's #Humboldt penguins win battle in war against mining giant pic.twitter.com/uy2lPQpRgV

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 13, 2017

Imperilled African penguins pose scientific mystery

Yahoo – AFP, Lawrence Bartlett, 4 Dec 2015

Africa's only nesting penguin has been classified as endangered likely as

 a result of competition for food from commercial fisheries and shifting fish

stocks (AFP Photo/Stephane De Sakutin)

Cape Town (AFP) - In the cold, clear waters at Boulders Beach in Cape Town, the African penguins are so relaxed they swim among humans and waddle past sunbathers on the sands.

But their unique species is dying, and scientists are trying to solve the mystery of whether it is humans that are killing them, and if so, how.

As representatives from over 150 countries huddle at a Paris conference aimed at achieving a global agreement on fighting climate change, the scientific sleuthing off Africa's southwestern coast highlights the difficulties in pinning down the links between global warming and animal behaviour.

Young African penguins head out to 

sea, after being released at Stony Point 

about 130 km from Cape Town (AFP 

Photo/Rodger Bosch)

African penguins are found only in South Africa and neighbouring Namibia, where they feed on fish shoals in the nutrient-rich waters of the cold Benguela current that runs northward along the west coast.

The number of breeding pairs has dropped by 90 percent at South African colonies north of Cape Town, from about 32,000 in 2004 to just over 3,000 in 2014, according to official statistics.

There is little dispute that the reason for the sharp decline in the number of little jackass penguins -- so nicknamed for their braying calls -- is the strange behaviour of their main prey, sardines and anchovies.

The concentrations of fish have moved southwards and eastwards, leaving the penguins dying of hunger in their wake.

A search for answers

Scientists say an obvious culprit might appear to be overfishing, but there is some dispute about whether this is borne out by the results of periodic fishing bans around some of the penguins' major habitats.

"The fish have seemingly changed their distribution, but what caused that is still a big research question," said Rob Crawford, a scientist with South Africa's department of environmental affairs.

"Overfishing and climate change are the main two possibilities and it is very hard to disentangle them," he told AFP.

There is no question that humans were responsible for an initial steep decline in the number of African penguins, which are classified as endangered by the International for the Conservation of Nature.

There is no question that humans were responsible for an initial steep

 decline in the number of African penguins, which are classified as endangered

 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (AFP Photo/

Stephane De Sakutin)

The environmental affairs department says the overall South African population may have been around a million breeding pairs in the 1920s -- dropping to just 19,000 in 2012.

The exploitation of eggs for human consumption played a major role in the early disastrous decline, but egg collection was banned in 1967 and numbers have continued to plummet.

The population in Namibia has also fallen sharply, from 12,162 breeding pairs in 1978 to an estimated 4,563 pairs in 2008, according to Birdlife International.

"There is no clear cut answer that climate change (over long-term environmental variation) is a driver, but it is thought to be playing an important role," says Richard Sherley, a University of Exeter researcher and expert on the African penguin.

"Changes in sea surface temperatures in the 1990s and early 2000s have resulted in (amongst other things) a change in the area most suitable for spawning for anchovy and sardine," he told AFP in an email interview.

"As a result, the high-energy prey that the adults of these fish species represent for penguins is far from the penguin colonies on South Africa’s West Coast for much of the year."

Time to move?

A plan to establish a new colony for penguins on the south coast, closer to their shifting food source, is among proposals aimed at saving the species.

Before penguins are moved to the chosen site, it will be prepared to make it seem like an established colony, says Birdlife South Africa.

Decoys, sound recordings and mirrors will be used to give the illusion of penguins using the colony, and penguin chicks and young will be released there.

The number of breeding pairs of African penguins has dropped by 90 

percent at South African colonies north of Cape Town, from about 32,000 in 

2004 to just over 3,000 in 2014, according to official statistics (AFP Photo/

Stephane De Sakutin)

One of the colonies hardest hit is on Cape Town's Robben Island, where late liberation icon Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists were imprisoned.

Thousands of kilometres to the south, in Antarctica, the charismatic Emperor penguins -- the inspiration for the Oscar-winning animated film "Happy Feet" -- are also threatened by rising temperatures, international researchers have warned.

In Paris, delegates to the climate change conference, which runs until December 11, are haggling over an ambitious roadmap for achieving the UN goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.

The UN's climate science panel says the emission of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal has to drop 40-70 percent between 2010 and 2050, and to zero by 2100.

As the wrangling continues, the African penguins may be a living warning of the cost of failure.