When emperor penguins are in your vicinity, their signature tuxedos and waddling gaits make them hard to miss. But when scientists from the British Antarctic Survey tried to track Antarctic emperor penguin populations using satellites, the birds proved too small to be seen. That’s when they got the idea to focus on something much larger and darker than the penguins themselves: the stains left by their feces.
Using the patches of poop as a guide, the scientists examined the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica and spotted 38 penguin colonies, including 10 that had never before been recorded.
Emperor penguins, which starred in the adorable documentary March of the Penguins, are at risk of becoming endangered if climate change threatens their habitat and food supply. In fact, populations in some of the colonies could drop by 95 percent by 2010.
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1. Every year during the summer and fall, ocean currents move penguins from southern Argentina to the beaches of Brazil. But this summer, almost four hundred penguins were swept away and ended up stranded hundreds of miles from their normal feeding home. The lost penguins were picked up and flown 1,500 miles on a C-130 Hercules military plane to the southern beaches and, upon landing, flopped into the sea. But the penguins didn’t get a free ride; Scientists tagged their flippers so they could track their future migration patterns. Hopefully they stick to the Mapquest route a little better next year.
2. Hundreds of adorable pandas (which may or may not be an evolutionary mistake) needed help after the Chinese Earthquake in May of 2008. The earthquake hit in a terrible spot, just 20 miles from the famous Wolong Giant Panda Reserve holding 86 pandas (all safe now). Some of the 1,200 pandas living in the wild, however, are still missing. The State Forest Administration sent in shipments of bamboo to help the reserve pandas survive.
3. Bermuda petrels were thought to be extinct for centuries. But in the 1950s, 18 nesting pairs were found. When a hurricane in 2003 destroyed the birds’ habitat, scientists moved the birds to higher ground at Nonsuch Island. (Despite the name, it does exist, we swear.) By removing the nestlings to artificial burrows on the new island, the scientists were able to build a new colony. There are now 85 pairs happily nesting there.
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At 25-years old, Pierre the penguin was starting to see his glory days as the California Academy of Sciences alpha male fade away. 25 years is a lot to ask for a species that usually only makes it to 20, and the elderly penguin had a rather awkward problem: His waterproof feathers were falling off, leaving him bald (with an “embarrassingly exposed, pale pink behind”). But the main problem wasn’t aesthetics—not that the comb-over is really an option for him—it’s that the penguin paddock is freaking cold. Heat lamps didn’t work, and the poor little guy “was unwilling to plunge into the academy’s penguin tank and ended up shivering on the sidelines while his 19 peers played in the water.”
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