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-----Original Message-----
From: "Penguin Adoption"
Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 00:48:51 To: ;
Subject: Penguin adoption - Promises
Dear PenguinPromises
After a lovely long rest at sea, Promises and our adopted penguins are now back home in the nest. It must be very peaceful just bobbing along in the open ocean, being rocked to sleep by the waves, and being able to just dive down and catch something to eat whenever they feel hungry. Penguins love the water, and are always happiest in the water.
Rearing the chicks is exhausting, and Promises lost about 2 kgs in weight rearing the chicks, so a long rest with plenty of food was very important so that Promises could recover the lost weight, ready for the next important phase of the penguin's yearly cycle.
A penguin's feathers act just like our clothes, and just like clothes, they do not last for ever. Eventually they wear out and need to be replaced. When that happens the penguins cannot just buy new clothes, they have to grow them, and that is what is happening now. The old feathers are now starting to fall out, because new feathers are growing underneath, and the new feathers push out the old feathers (just like children's teeth fall out when replacement adult teeth begin growing underneath). This process of changing feathers is called molting or moulting, depending on where you live. and it happens every year at this time of year.
Most animals molt. If you have a cat or dog, you may have noticed that occasionally it looses a lot of fur, which stick to your clothes or on the carpet. But for most animals the molt takes place gradually, and does not affect the animal very much. But for penguins it is very different. Because the sea water is so cold, the feathers are very important for keeping Promises warm in the water. Without feathers to keep warm, Promises would die from the cold. So Promises cannot go swimming whilst the feathers are falling out. And since penguins catch all their food out at sea, that means that Promises cannot eat anything either until the molt has finished.
It takes about three to four weeks for the old feathers to fall out, and the new ones to grow back, which means three to four weeks of doing nothing except standing around, with nothing to eat, just waiting for the new feathers to grow. This must be a very miserable time of year for Promises. You have probable heard people who are waiting a very long time for something, complaining that "it is like watching grass grow". Well even grass grows faster than feathers. Normally in summer the colony is a noisy place, with lots of penguins calling out all across the colony, even during the night. But now, even though there are thousands of penguins in the colony, it is quiet. It is as though the penguins are so miserable that they have nothing to sing about.
I attach a photo showing penguins undergoing this process on the beach. If you look carefully you will see that many of the penguins look like soft toys with the stuffing falling out. Try zooming in to get a closer look. These are the old feathers falling out. In a couple of weeks there will be so many feathers on the ground that it looks like snow. Resting and fattening up with lots of food before the molt is very important. Not only do the penguins have to go without food for several weeks during the molt, but their bodies must also provide all the energy and protein necessary to grow a complete set of new feathers, all using fat and protein reserves stored within their bodies. If the penguins cannot recover their weight quickly after chick-rearing, they can be in serious trouble.
In 2002, commercial fishing around the Falkland Islands depleted fish stocks so much that the adults were unable to catch enough food to fatten up properly prior to the molt, and thousands of penguins starved to death on land during the molt (see
www.falklands.net). Fortunately there is no such danger for our penguin colonies in Chile and Argentina. They are protected by no-fishing zones established by the Chilean and Argentine governments to prevent that from ever happening, but the Falkland Islands still refuses to protect the penguins from commercial fishing, despite petitions from the International scientific community.
By now the chicks will be gradually working their way up the coast of South America. When the adults migrate northwards, they tend to stay well away from the coast, because they feed on larger fish, but the youngsters still lack the speed and stamina to catch larger fish, so they keep closer to the shore, feeding on small fish and crustaceans hiding amongst the beds of seaweed.
Their final destination is Brazil, but it takes many weeks to get there, and there is no rush. It is not so much a migration, but more a gradual movement northwards as they go about their daily business of foraging for food amongst the kelp beds, in order to avoid the southern winter that is closing in upon us.
When the dreaded molt is over, Promises will also make the same journey to enjoy a winter vacation under the warm Brazilian sun. I will write to you again when that happens.
Best wishes, Mike
