if you’re a magellanic penguin this
ten-mile stretch of Argentine Beach is
where the action is
[Music]
a place to scope out a new partner
conductor courtship and settle down to
raise the youngsters
National Geographic grantee D Boersma
has been following this a V in soap
opera for 25 years this is a pair that’s
back here’s a male and you can see he’s
still wet so he just came back from the
sea and the female is dry but you can
see they’ve got this fat chick both of
them are feeding it
this chick is now so fat that even
though the males just come home and is
wet it’s not even begging for food on
the surface it would seem this penguin
colony is thriving the D is worried she
seen the population dropped by 22% in
the past 20 years the research data
suggests adults must swim further and
further out to sea to find food for
their chicks the culprit could be oil
spills overfishing by humans or even
global warming to find out what’s
threatening the colony the movements of
these busy Magellanic penguins must be
monitored but all penguin researchers
share a common problem it’s hard for
humans to tell penguins apart it may be
hard for even hen gwin’s to tell
themselves apart they identify each
other
by calls however state-of-the-art
technology can help researchers out
one of the real problems is how do you
tell individuals apart and so what we’ve
been doing for the last 25 years is the
traditional method of marking penguins
we kind of put a band on a penguin so
this is what a band looks like and we
actually put it on the left flipper so
it’s a little like wearing a bracelet or
something like that and so we can tell
the individuals apart what we’re trying
to do now is instead of having to read
the band
let the penguin identify themselves and
we’re doing this by putting a little
tiny tag in their foot and then that’s
like a barcode that you’d put in your
dog or cats and they walk across a
magnetic grate and they tell us who they
are
the researchers sent out Matz with
sensors that are able to read the
microchips implanted in the Penguins
feet covered with sand and rocks the
mats are a minor road block on a popular
pathway to the beach they’re not so sure
about the pads when they walk over them
some of them just walk over the pads and
pay no attention others are so curious
that they spend time with their beep
feeling up and down the pad trying to
tear the pad apart every time a
microchip penguin crosses the mat the
computer records its movements sort of
like the EZ Pass Lane on the busy
highway with traffic monitored
electronically except for routine
maintenance the researchers don’t even
have to be around the Penguins are
literally counting themselves the most
important part about that is not only
can we get a night’s sleep but we don’t
bother the Penguins at all and we can
get information we’ve never had before
we can know how long they’re gone to see
the forage how long are they staying
home with their chicks and then we can
start to look at what’s the effect of
opening a fishery or closing a fishery
on these birds
oh so this is Dan that’s his incubation
trip going straight out so you can see
he’s really foraging back in her office
at the University of Washington d
analyzes the tracking data she and her
team are also developing new technology
that will weigh penguins by embedding a
scale under the mat that monitors their
movements this way D will be able to
determine how much food the Penguins are
consuming without touching them not
surprisingly just like you don’t like to
be picked up by a monster and weighed
penguins don’t like it either so this
way we should be able to get their
weight and not bother the birds at all
DS long-term research supported by the
Wildlife Conservation Society is helping
protect the Punta Tombo colony oil
companies have moved their shipping
lanes and the government has stepped in
to protect the coastal habitats they
share with other species the D argues
the real solution is to keep entire
ocean ecosystems healthy because
penguins like so many other marine
animals migrate over vast distances
there are global marine sentinels
they’re telling us not only what happens
with oil pollution in places they tell
us about climate change they tell us
about how we’re using the ocean what’s
happening to our fisheries we can get a
lot of insights from other species and
so long-term studies I think are
actually critical to be able to inform
humans so we can make better use of the
resources of the earth
the Penguins for the most part don’t
seem aware computers are recording their
every move and that someone is watching
over them in the hopes of making sure
their raucous colony stay safe for
generations to come
[Music]
sponsored by National Geographic mission
programs taking science and exploration
into the new millennium
ten-mile stretch of Argentine Beach is
where the action is
[Music]
a place to scope out a new partner
conductor courtship and settle down to
raise the youngsters
National Geographic grantee D Boersma
has been following this a V in soap
opera for 25 years this is a pair that’s
back here’s a male and you can see he’s
still wet so he just came back from the
sea and the female is dry but you can
see they’ve got this fat chick both of
them are feeding it
this chick is now so fat that even
though the males just come home and is
wet it’s not even begging for food on
the surface it would seem this penguin
colony is thriving the D is worried she
seen the population dropped by 22% in
the past 20 years the research data
suggests adults must swim further and
further out to sea to find food for
their chicks the culprit could be oil
spills overfishing by humans or even
global warming to find out what’s
threatening the colony the movements of
these busy Magellanic penguins must be
monitored but all penguin researchers
share a common problem it’s hard for
humans to tell penguins apart it may be
hard for even hen gwin’s to tell
themselves apart they identify each
other
by calls however state-of-the-art
technology can help researchers out
one of the real problems is how do you
tell individuals apart and so what we’ve
been doing for the last 25 years is the
traditional method of marking penguins
we kind of put a band on a penguin so
this is what a band looks like and we
actually put it on the left flipper so
it’s a little like wearing a bracelet or
something like that and so we can tell
the individuals apart what we’re trying
to do now is instead of having to read
the band
let the penguin identify themselves and
we’re doing this by putting a little
tiny tag in their foot and then that’s
like a barcode that you’d put in your
dog or cats and they walk across a
magnetic grate and they tell us who they
are
the researchers sent out Matz with
sensors that are able to read the
microchips implanted in the Penguins
feet covered with sand and rocks the
mats are a minor road block on a popular
pathway to the beach they’re not so sure
about the pads when they walk over them
some of them just walk over the pads and
pay no attention others are so curious
that they spend time with their beep
feeling up and down the pad trying to
tear the pad apart every time a
microchip penguin crosses the mat the
computer records its movements sort of
like the EZ Pass Lane on the busy
highway with traffic monitored
electronically except for routine
maintenance the researchers don’t even
have to be around the Penguins are
literally counting themselves the most
important part about that is not only
can we get a night’s sleep but we don’t
bother the Penguins at all and we can
get information we’ve never had before
we can know how long they’re gone to see
the forage how long are they staying
home with their chicks and then we can
start to look at what’s the effect of
opening a fishery or closing a fishery
on these birds
oh so this is Dan that’s his incubation
trip going straight out so you can see
he’s really foraging back in her office
at the University of Washington d
analyzes the tracking data she and her
team are also developing new technology
that will weigh penguins by embedding a
scale under the mat that monitors their
movements this way D will be able to
determine how much food the Penguins are
consuming without touching them not
surprisingly just like you don’t like to
be picked up by a monster and weighed
penguins don’t like it either so this
way we should be able to get their
weight and not bother the birds at all
DS long-term research supported by the
Wildlife Conservation Society is helping
protect the Punta Tombo colony oil
companies have moved their shipping
lanes and the government has stepped in
to protect the coastal habitats they
share with other species the D argues
the real solution is to keep entire
ocean ecosystems healthy because
penguins like so many other marine
animals migrate over vast distances
there are global marine sentinels
they’re telling us not only what happens
with oil pollution in places they tell
us about climate change they tell us
about how we’re using the ocean what’s
happening to our fisheries we can get a
lot of insights from other species and
so long-term studies I think are
actually critical to be able to inform
humans so we can make better use of the
resources of the earth
the Penguins for the most part don’t
seem aware computers are recording their
every move and that someone is watching
over them in the hopes of making sure
their raucous colony stay safe for
generations to come
[Music]
sponsored by National Geographic mission
programs taking science and exploration
into the new millennium
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