3147. Thousands of Predominantly Female Penguins are Stranded or Mysteriously Disappear Each Year

By Brandon Specktor, Live Science, January 8, 2019

Female Magellanic penguins, shown here, have been stranding on the coasts of South America, and researchers aren't sure why.

Credit: Takashi Yamamoto
Near the southern tip of South America, thousands of ladies — wives, mothers, anchovy enthusiasts — are vanishing from their nests.The females in question are Magellanic penguins — a mid-size species of black-and-white bird native to South America's Patagonia region. When not breeding in the latter part of the year, both male and female members of the species migrate north toward Uruguay and Brazil to hunt for the tasty anchovies that call those waters home. Over the last decade, however, scientists have observed an upsetting trend: some penguins are swimming too far north — sometimes hundreds of miles away from their breeding grounds — and getting stuck there.According to a new study published today (Jan. 7) in the journal Current Biology, every year, thousands of Magellanic penguins fail to return home from their migrations. Some become stranded on the shores of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. Others wash up already dead, their stomachs empty or polluted with plastic waste. Strangely, about two-thirds of the stranded birds are female. Takashi Yamamoto, lead author of the new study and a researcher at the Institute of Statistical Mathematics in Tokyo, wanted to find out what was happening, and why female penguins were disproportionately afflicted. So, he and several colleagues tagged a small group of 14 Magellanic penguins (eight males and six females) with GPS ankle monitors, then watched where the birds strayed after their breeding period ended in early 2017. After several months of observations, the team saw a clear pattern. During their spring and summer migrations, male penguins tended to dive deeper and stay closer to their Patagonian breeding grounds; female penguins swam closer to the water's surface, but migrated significantly farther north than their male counterparts.There, in the waters near Uruguay and southern Brazil, the penguins approached known penguin-stranding hotspots. According to the researchers, these stranding sites — such as the riverfront near the city of Buenos Aires, in northern Argentina — likely trap the penguins through a mixture of strong currents that prevent smaller-bodied birds from swimming home and man-made threats"These [threats] include water pollution caused by oil development and marine transport as well as fishery-associated hazards, such as bycatch and depletion of prey species," Yamamoto said in a statement.The reason that female penguins seem to be disproportionately stranded compared to males might be as simple as body size. According to the researchers, female Magellanic penguins are smaller than males, which could make it harder for them to compete for food in crowded southern waters, or to fight against strong currents in the north. A smaller body also means a greater sensitivity to ocean temperatures, Yamamoto noted. This could give the smaller-bodied females a preference for chasing warmer waters northward toward the equator, and for avoiding deep dives into the cold, dark ocean.This small study is just to first step toward understand the cause and scale of the mysterious bird strandings. But, according to Yamamoto, this much is clear: if fewer and fewer females return to their breeding grounds every year, the viability of the entire Magellanic penguin population could soon be at risk.

2829. The Life and Death of Nigel: The World's Loneliest Seabird

By Yonette Joseph, The New York Times, February 4, 2018

Nigel, on the right, courted the concrete decoy to left until he died in his nest.

LONDON — The story of a lonely seabird named Nigel who tried to woo a mate that had a heart of stone and died on an uninhabited island off New Zealand has captivated many on social media.

Footage of the bird preening and cooing as he fruitlessly courted a decoy made of concrete has been watched obsessively online. Though his chosen partner kept a cold silence, Nigel, a gannet, won the affection of visitors and conservationists alike.

His solitary life shined a light on a yearslong effort by an army of conservationists, devoted volunteers and others to repopulate his species on the island.

News of the seabird’s death in late January hit the island’s caretakers and social media users hard.

“It seems like such a wrong ending for Nigel to die now,” said Chris Bell, 37, a ranger for the New Zealand Conservation Department, who found the seabird dead in his nest. “Just when it looked like it could get better for him.”

Nigel first landed on Mana Island a few years ago (conservationists differ on the year). Mana is about 16 miles, or 25.3 kilometers, northwest of Wellington, the capital. It’s also the site of an ambitious effort to establish a flourishing colony of Australasian gannets, which can be found in social clusters off the coast of Australia and New Zealand. But types of gannets have settled all over the world, including in Scotland.

In the 1990s, conservationists set up concrete gannets on the western side of Mana to lure real birds. They painted the decoys’ beaks yellow, the wingtips black, the plumage white. They played seabird calls over solar-powered speakers.

On the very first day, two gannets swooped in, Mr. Bell said by phone early Saturday. Conservationists congratulated themselves on their instant success. But soon, the birds flew away, and the project stalled.

Then came Nigel.

He quickly took a liking to one of the concrete replicas, according to Mr. Bell, who says he’s the only full-time employee on the island. Month after month, the bird cozied up to his chosen mate, but “she” remained aloof.

“He nested alongside her,” said Linda Kerkmeester, vice president of the environmental conservation group Friends of Mana Island. “He was seen wooing her by preening her. Nigel was also seen trying to mate with her.”

A botanist doing a survey for Friends of Mana Island named the bird Nigel “no mates” because he had no friends.

“I think the saddest part of this story is what a frustrating existence to be courting this stone bird and getting nothing back,” Mr. Bell said. “Not getting rejected, not getting encouragement.”

Though Nigel lived a mostly solitary life on the island, he became the linchpin of the efforts to draw other gannets to Mana.

The colony was one of several seabird projects undertaken by a partnership that included a local tribe, Friends of Mana Island and the Conservation Department to drive gannets to spread out and inhabit other islands.

“New Zealand was an amazing place for seabirds before humans arrived,” Mr. Bell said. “Lots of seabirds nested on the land. Bringing seabirds back to the land is important.”

The seabirds are key to the project because they provide nutrients in the soil for insects and plants to thrive, according to Friends of Mana Island.

New Zealand, whose native species have been devastated by predators like rats that were introduced to the country, is aiming for an environmental moon shot. The nation is waging a battle to eradicate all invasive predators by 2050. Several islands have already been cleared.

Mana, which was farmed from the 1820s to the 1980s, is pest free. It has been restored with 500,000 native trees, and lizards, seabirds and other native birds have been translocated, Friends of Mana Island said.

“Mana Island is a great scientific reserve because Mana never had rats,” Mr. Bell said. “So it’s a great place to reintroduce species.”

In December, after years of hoping the Mana seabird project would take off, conservationists redoubled efforts to build up the colony. They repositioned the decoys and moved the speakers so that recorded bird sounds would be carried clear out to sea. The fake birds got fresh paint. And suddenly, Nigel had company.