How to create a new penguin colony

 

When I tell people that my goal is to create a new penguin colony, one of the first things they ask, often slightly incredulously, is “How?” Scientists and conservationists have been establishing (or re-establishing) new seabird colonies for many years. One of the most famous examples is how Atlantic Puffins were reintroduced to Maine. 

 

Atlantic Puffin (C) Pierre Malan

Seabirds have several life history traits that can make it difficult for them to establish new colonies. Firstly many are what is termed “philopatric”: they return to the same colony where they hatched when they are old enough to breed. This is important because most seabirds mate for life, and in order to find the same mate year after year, they need to go back to the same colony. Imagine trying to find your partner somewhere out in the vast ocean!

There are 3 techniques that can be used:

1. Habitat creation: This involves providing suitable nesting habitat through the clearing of vegetation, artificial nesting chambers and predator control.
2. Social attraction: the use of decoys and sound recordings to attract birds to the site.
3. Chick translocation: translocation is the deliberate movement of animals from one place for release in another. To establish colonies, chicks are moved to a new site so that they will return there in subsequent years to breed.

After studying previous attempts at colony creation, it seems to work best when a combination are used. So to create a new colony of African Penguins, we will use all three techniques.

We will make sure there is enough suitable breeding habitat by putting in artificial burrows and protecting the site from predators by building a predator proof fence.

 

A pair of African Penguins make use of an artificial nest at the Stony Point colony.

Penguins like to breed near other birds, so we’ll put out decoys and mirrors to make it seem like the site is already being used. We will also play recordings of penguin mating calls and chick begging calls.

At certain sites, we will also move chicks, which are just ready to fledge and leave the colony on their own.

 

These chicks are almost ready to leave the colony to go to sea on their own. Once they have lost their fluffy down and developed sleek waterproof plumage, they're called "blues" because of the blue-grey colouring of their plumage. (C) Craig Harding

This has never been done before so we will treat our first attempt as an experiment, using various techniques to see what works (without endangering any penguins).