The Amazing Penguin Rescue

from “The Amazing Penguin Rescue”

By Lauren Tarshis

Imagine you are an African penguin living on an island in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. You live with tens of thousands of other penguins on a rocky beach. It’s a typical day there in June—cold and windy. The beach echoes with penguin noises, barks and honks and brays. Some of your fellow penguins fight for territory. Others cuddle with their mates and dote on their chicks.

You’re hungry, so you head down to the water’s edge. You waddle on tiny feet, and your wings are too stubby for flying. But in the water, you can swim faster and dive deeper than any bird on Earth. As you plunge into the sea, your wings become powerful underwater propellers. You shoot through the water at 12 miles an hour, a black-and-white blur, snatching sardines from the surface, swallowing them whole, then catching more. Your thick feathers protect you from the freezing water.

You stay in the sea for hours until your belly is full. Then you turn to head back to shore.

That’s when something goes wrong.

As you come to the surface for air, the water feels unfamiliar. It is thick, and it burns your eyes. You try to swim away, but suddenly your wings are too heavy to lift and you can barely propel yourself. Your body wobbles and rolls. You feel bitterly cold. You shiver and gasp for breath.

What you don’t know is that just hours ago, a cargo ship called Treasure hit a reef and split apart. As it sank, 1,300 tons of toxic crude oil gushed into the sea. Oil surrounds your breeding ground—the largest African penguin breeding ground in the world.

You are not the only penguin that has become soaked with the poisonous oil. Thousands of others have been trapped in the massive oil slick.

The impact of oil on a penguin (or any bird) is immediate and devastating. You are shivering because the oil has caused your layers of feathers to separate. Freezing water now lashes at your sensitive skin. Your eyes hurt because the oil has burned them. Your wings are heavy because they are coated with oil.

But your instinct for survival is strong. Somehow you struggle back to shore, fighting the waves and the current. The trip, usually effortless, is an agonizing ordeal. You manage to stagger onto the beach and back to your nest. You lick and peck at your feathers, desperate to clean them. Finally you give up. There is nothing to do but stand there, terrified, dazed, and silent.

Strange Creatures

Then the beach is invaded by enormous creatures.

They are humans, but you don’t know that. You have never seen a human before. These men and women know what you don’t: that this oil spill is a catastrophe for you and your species. Some of them have devoted their lives to helping birds like you, birds caught in oil spills and other human-made disasters. They have helped with bird rescues around the world. All they care about is saving your life.

But how could you know this?

As the humans swarm the beach, you are overcome with panic. A man catches you. You lash out viciously with your powerful jaws and razor-sharp beak. You bite his arm, ripping his skin through the fabric of his thick coat. He doesn’t let go. You strike again, biting his leg, inflicting a wound that will leave a scar for the rest of his life. But he cares more about you than himself. All across the beach, dozens of people are capturing penguins, enduring excruciating bites and wing slaps as they load you and the other penguins into crates. It is painful, exhausting work. The sight of all of these scared and Injured penguins is heartbreaking to the humans. Some-grown men and women-fight tears.

But they don't give up. Tens of thousands of penguins are in danger. And they Intend to save every single one. Ten miles from the island, outside the city of Cape Town, a team of workers and volunteers has transformed a warehouse into a penguin rescue center. They have worked with astonishing speed. The warehouse holds hundreds of round enclosures, each large enough for 100 penguins. There are additional areas where penguins will be washed. One room is filled with ten tons of frozen fish, the amount needed daily to feed the penguins. Acquiring this enormous quantity of fish every day will be one of the workers' great challenges.

Actually, everything is a challenge. Simply getting one penguin to eat Is a monumental task. In the wild, penguins hunt for sardines and gobble them up while they are still alive and wriggling. These penguins won't accept the dead fish offered by human hands; workers have to force-feed them. They must restrain a penguin, pry its beak open, and shove the fish down its throat. Feeding one penguin can take an hour. Feeding all of the penguins takes an army of workers 15 hours.

And then there is the smell that fills the warehouse-a combination of penguin droppings, dead sardines, and human sweat. It is a stench so powerful that many people throw up when they first arrive.

But not even the smell keeps people away.

As news of the rescue effort spreads, hundreds, and then thousands, of volunteers flock to the warehouse, eager to help. They are a diverse group, including rich women from fancy neighborhoods and poor teenagers from Cape Town's streets. Some have experience helping wildlife; some have never even owned a pet. All of them have one thing in common: a mission to save as many penguins as possible.

The Amazing Penguin Rescue

By Dyan deNapoli as told to Natalie Smith

The summer of 2000, I had just finished my rounds tending to the New England Aquarium’s 60 penguins when I got an urgent call from South Africa. The manager of SANCCOB, a seabird rescue center in Cape Town, was on the line. The region’s penguins were in trouble. The cargo ship MV Treasure had sunk off the coast of Cape Town, creating an oil spill. Thirteen hundred tons of fuel oil were flowing near Robben Island, right in the middle of the African penguins’ primary habitat. In a matter of days, thick, toxic liquid had covered about 20,000 penguins. Without swift help, the seabirds would have no chance for survival.

SANCCOB had launched a massive rescue operation for the oiled penguins. Volunteers were showing up by the thousands, but they had no experience. The center needed penguin keepers to train the volunteers. Would I help?

Two days later, I boarded a plane to South Africa. I was about to take part in what would become the largest animal rescue operation ever attempted.

A Startling Silence

Just outside Cape Town, a large warehouse had been turned into a rescue center for the oiled penguins. The rescuers had set up makeshift pools, which held about 100 oiled birds each. Hundreds of pools covered the floor.

When I first walked into the building, I couldn’t believe my ears. Normally, African penguins are vocal birds. I expected to walk in to a chorus of honking and squawking. Instead, the center sounded like a library. Only the hushed voices of people could be heard. The penguins were dead silent.

I felt overwhelmed. My heart ached for the distressed birds. Cleaning them all seemed like an impossible task. But we had to carry on like doctors in an emergency room. There was no time for doubt.

Bird Bath

Cleaning oil off a penguin isn’t easy. It takes two people—one to hold the penguin, another to do the washing. The bird is sprayed with a degreaser and scrubbed with warm, soapy water. Delicate areas around the face must be brushed with a toothbrush. Then the bird gets rinsed under a hose. The whole process takes about an hour. Even with more than 12,500 volunteers, it took a month to bathe all 20,000 birds at the center.

The Spreading Bill

While workers bathed penguins at the rescue center, another crisis was developing. Oil from the spill had started moving north toward Dassen Island. Tens of thousands of penguins were in the oil’s path. But we already had our hands full with 20,000 recovering birds. Supplies were running low. If any more birds were oiled, we wouldn’t have enough resources to save them.

One researcher came up with an idea: What if the Dassen penguins were temporarily moved out of harm’s way? The method had never been tried before. Experts decided to give it a chance. Workers rounded up a large number of the penguins on Dassen Island and released them near Port Elizabeth, 500 miles away. The hope was that by the time the seabirds swam home, the oil would be gone. The plan worked! Another 20,000 penguins were saved.

Amazing Rescue

The entire penguin rescue operation took about three months. In the end, more than 90 percent of the oiled penguins were successfully returned to the wild. In a previous large-scale penguin rescue, only half of the oiled birds survived. We could hardly believe that our efforts worked!

But for me, the most inspiring part was the work of the volunteers. Rescuing penguins isn’t glamorous. The stench of the rescue center—a mix of penguin droppings and dead fish—made people feel sick. The scratches and bites of terrified birds covered volunteers’ arms. As the Penguin Lady, I’m used to facing such hazards to care for the animals I love. What I didn’t realize was how many other people care for penguins too.

Update on Penguin Rescue Efforts from Oil Spill in South Atlantic

This is a follow-up to an earlier diary about the threat posed by oil spilled by a freighter that broke up off Nightingale Island, home to approximately half of the world's endangered Northern Rockhopper penguin population.

Here is a brief recap of key events. On March 16, for reasons no one has been able to determine, a fully loaded freighter containing soybeans slammed into the rocks off Nightingale Island in the Tristan da Cunha archipelago (a World Heritage site) in the south Atlantic. The freighter broke in half and sank, dumping at least 1500 tons of fuel oil in the seas, which formed a heavy oil slick around the island, threatening marine life. The penguins attracted the most attention as they are a critically endangered. Because of the remote location, it took wildlife rescue teams nearly a week to reach the island by boat and set up operations. Wildlife biologists estimate that half of the 20,000 penguin colony have had some exposure to the oil and over 300 oiled penguins have already died.

Thanks to outreach and updates by marine biologist David Guggenheim, the difficult wildlife rescue operation is starting to get broader attention by NGOs and the media. CNN has finally covered the story.

This tragedy has been filled with unsung acts of heroism large and small. I want to sing their praises.

Shortly after the freighter ran aground, the cruise ship Prince Albert and fishing vessel Edinburgh responded to the distress signal and assisted in the difficult task of evacuating the 22 crew members of the MS Oliva (Valetta) before it broke apart and sank. A rescue team from the Prince Albert used small pontoon vessels to reach the stricken ship, navigating rough seas and rocks in the process. The crew members were brought to the Edinburgh, which was small enough to dock on the island.

The residents of the island and the wildlife rescue teams have been working around the clock to save the penguins and other marine animals affected by the oil. There are four major tasks required to save the penguin colony and other affected wildlife.

Locate and retrieve oiled animals. This means using small boats in heavy seas to find the animals in the water, on rocks, and in remote coves. While plucking the penguins from the water is relatively easy, getting to the animals on sea-splashed and oil-covered rocks is quite another matter.

At last report, over 3000 oiled penguins have been rescued, along with sea birds and seals.
Treat the affected animals as quickly as possible to reduce ingestion of oil. This requires washing the feathers with detergent to remove oil and then coaxing them to drink fluids, vitamins and charcoal to absorb ingested oil. It is a labor of love that means working every waking hour for the residents and several dozen wildlife rescue specialists.

Once treated the less severely affected penguins are taken to the island's swimming pool, which has been emptied, partially filled with fresh water, and cleaned frequently.

The more severely affected penguins and other sea birds are being taken to warehouses and specially built sheds. These animals require more care and observation. They also must be kept warm with heaters or infrared bulbs to prevent pneumonia. The freighter crew has been spending their time building the pens and rehabilitation sheds.
Pen and house the rest of colony to prevent exposure to oil. With molting season ending, the penguins' instinct is to head for the seas to forage for food.
Feed the entire colony of 20,000 penguins. A large fishing vessel has been working continuously since the crisis began to fish for the penguins. The seas have been particularly rough and island residents have emptied their freezers to feed the birds. By the way, fishing is the primary occupation among residents. When they donate the contents of their freezers, they are emptying their own larders and wallets.

“Update on Penguin Rescue Efforts from Oil Spill in South Atlantic” © Kos Media, LLC. “Kos” and “Daily Kos” are registered trademarks of Kos Media, LLC.