Transcript

2.19.26 · Smithsonian Magazine

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye and to
0:04
day I will be reading a Smithsonian magazine dated January
0:08
February twenty twenty six. As a reminder, Radio Eye is
0:12
a reading service intended for people who are blind or
0:15
have other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material.
0:19
Please join me now for the article titled rock Hopper.
0:22
Penguin's athleticism makes them the dare devils of the animal world.
0:27
Will a warming climate slow them down? A visit to
0:31
the Falkland Islands, where the fearless sea birds navigate the
0:34
rugged topography with tenacious spunk, shows the new challenges they face.
0:40
By Sheryl cats on a rocky ledge over the coast
0:44
of an island in the far South Atlantic Ocean, a
0:47
young penguin peers nervously at the chasm ahead. Her bushy,
0:52
yellow eyebrows waggle as she tilts her head one way,
0:56
then another, scouting their route home to her nest high above.
1:00
This next step will be a doozy. To reach the
1:03
ledge on the other side, she'll have to make a
1:06
gravity defying leap more than twice her diminutive height. Her
1:10
wet feathers shimmer in the setting sun. As she musters
1:14
her courage. You can do it, Petra. Quilfeldt coaxes the
1:18
little penguin. You're a rock hopper. The coach's confidence is
1:23
well founded. Quilfeldt, a sea bird ecologist from Justus Liebigh
1:29
University Gyiesen in Germany, has been visiting this Southern rock
1:33
hopper colony in the Falkland Islands for nearly twenty years,
1:37
studying how the penguins, with their piston like bodies, are
1:41
being affected by climate and ocean conditions. As if buoyed
1:46
by the peptalk, the hesitant bird cocks her flightless wings,
1:50
her powerful pink feet push off the rock with tremendous force.
1:55
She catapults across the gap and sticks the landing with
1:58
a clasp of strong rip claws. After a beat to
2:02
shake her feathers and toss us a backward glance, she
2:06
hops off to join her colony mates bounding up the
2:09
steep hill. Penguins, those shambling stars of nature films, are
2:15
some of the world's most familiar and beloved birds. We
2:18
are inspired by their quiet stoicism and amused by their clumsy,
2:23
waddling gait. But Southern rock hoppers, little balls of mussel
2:27
with outsized personalities, are the bad asses of the penguin world.
2:32
Roughly the size of a pet rabbit. Rock hoppers are
2:35
the smallest penguins to ply the cold rough waters north
2:39
of Antarctica. With their bright ruby eyes, whimsical gold crests,
2:44
and spiky black crowns, they sport an adorable, pixy punk look.
2:49
Rock Hoppers surf the gnarliest brakes, fight with birds many
2:53
times their size, and pick constant noisy squabbles with their neighbors.
2:58
Their full throttle lifestyle makes them favorites among people who
3:02
live and work in the Falklands, a Connecticut's size cluster
3:06
of around seven hundred and eighty islands roughly four hundred
3:09
miles east of the southern coast of South America. They've
3:13
got attitude. They're always doing something, says Adrian Lowe, a
3:18
farmer who has three rock copper colonies on his sheep
3:21
pasture near Stanley, the Falkland's capital. They're tough at Quilfeld's
3:27
Study Colony on New Island, an eight mile long crescent
3:30
near the archipelago's western edge. Lines of pint sized commuters
3:35
and black and white suits snake up a winding gully.
3:39
It's mid December, the end of a long austral summer day,
3:43
and these rock coppers have been fishing since dawn fourteen
3:46
hours ago. And then they have to go home and
3:49
feed the chicks. Quell Felt notes, wrily to get back
3:53
to their nests, microchipped penguins must pass through a radio
3:57
frequency gateway at the colony's entrance, which loves their comings
4:01
and goings. The birds bouncing past us now are nearly
4:05
all mothers. Whilfelt tells me. One way that rock hoppers
4:09
have adapted to their food limited, energy demanding environment is
4:14
that males stay in the colony guarding the chicks and
4:17
don't eat for roughly a month while chicks are with
4:20
them full time. Only females forage while the chicks are
4:24
in the nest. Their flexible stomach physiology makes them essentially
4:29
refrigerators for the day's catch of krill and small fish.
4:33
They digest some of the prey they swallow, but as
4:36
they head back to land, their digestions shuts down and
4:39
their stomach cools, keeping the food fresh for hungry chicks.
4:43
I watch these intrepid mamas ride the churning surf below,
4:47
porpoising over surging waves to shore, then blasting belly first
4:52
onto jagged seaweed slicked rocks. Some land pop up on
4:56
their feet and make a mad dash out of the
4:58
way of the next way. Most, however, wipe out and
5:02
get swept back to sea. They'll have to try and
5:05
try again. Rock hoppers penchant for colonies high over perilous
5:10
landings separates them from the other penguin species that call
5:14
the Falklands home magellanix, kings, macaronis and gentoos. Those other
5:21
penguins usually build their colonies on soft, level ground with
5:25
easy access to the water, says Juan Mascello, a behavioral
5:30
ecologist who is also Quilfelt's husband. But not rock hoppers.
5:34
They go for the worst, he says. Indeed, according to
5:38
Sarah Croft's, a sea bird biologist who has worked with
5:41
Falkland's bird life for nearly two decades, these dare devils
5:45
don't even seem to consider the prospect of failure. They
5:49
only say we'll give it a go. We'll try and
5:52
scale this huge cliff to get to the colony, or
5:54
we'll fight an albatross to defend our nest. It's just
5:58
the way they're built determine. Like most penguins today, however,
6:03
these tough little birds are facing some big problems. Rock Hoppers,
6:08
members of the crested penguin Eudiptes genus, have recently been
6:13
divided into three species, Southern also sometimes called Western, Northern
6:18
also called moseleys, and Eastern. More than half of the
6:23
world's rock hoppers are Southern rock hoppers, which breed primarily
6:27
in the sub polar Falklands and along the southern coast
6:31
of South America. Colonies of the considerably less populous Northern
6:36
rock hoppers are found mainly on temperate South Atlantic islands
6:40
much farther north, while Eastern rock hoppers have their range
6:44
around New Zealand and the southern Indian Ocean. Populations of
6:49
all three species have plummeted in recent years. Southern rock hoppers,
6:53
believed to have once numbered in the several millions worldwide,
6:57
fell to an estimated eight hundred fifty eight thousand breeding
7:01
pairs in a twenty ten census, and were classified as
7:04
vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red
7:09
List of Threatened Species in twenty twenty. The species decline
7:13
is especially concerning in the Falklands, where more than a
7:17
third of all Southern rock hoppers are born. Once teeming
7:21
colonies here have become noticeably sparse. Scientists estimate that some
7:27
one point five million rock hopper couples raised chicks across
7:31
the archipelago in the nineteen thirties. By nineteen ninety six,
7:35
that number had dropped to fewer than three hundred thousand.
7:39
Last centuries precipitous plunge of rock hoppers in the Falklands
7:43
appears to have tapered for now. With a lifespan of
7:47
ten to fifteen years, the species can withstand the occasional
7:51
disaster and rebuild the population over time. But as colonies
7:55
here in the Falklands struggle to recover, a string of
7:59
catastrophes during recent breeding seasons has repeatedly knocked them back down.
8:04
In the early two thousands, for instance, tens of thousands
8:08
of rock hoppers and other penguins died from consuming prey
8:12
poisoned by a toxic algael bloom. Colonies have also been
8:17
clobbered by food shortages that caused mass starvation of adults.
8:22
What's more, chicks survival in the Falklands has slumped for
8:26
the past three decades. Changing weather is unleashing unseasonably intense storms,
8:33
killing downy chicks that haven't yet grown their warm, waterproof feathers.
8:38
Predation is also taking a toll. Rock Hoppers generally mate
8:43
for life and raise one or occasionally two chicks per season.
8:47
Chicks slow to mature don't breed until they are around
8:51
four years old. Penguins spend most of their lives at
8:54
sea and only come on to land to breed. These days, however,
8:59
too few chicks live to fledge at the end of
9:02
most seasons to help boost the numbers when they return
9:06
as adults. Outside Quilfelt's study colony, it's getting darker and
9:11
rush hour has slowed to a trickle. As we head
9:14
back to the lab from the colony. Behind us, the
9:17
enthusiastic brays of reunited couples, the insistent peeps of hungry chicks,
9:22
and the screeching spats between neighbors follow us, growing louder
9:27
as it gets later. The next evening, I struggle to
9:31
keep up with Quilfeldt and Miscello as they march through
9:34
dense tussock grass on their way back to the New
9:37
Island study colony. The stiff native grass is taller than
9:41
I am, and I feel a moment of panic when
9:43
it totally enfolds me. Then I spot the long poles
9:47
strapped to Missello's backpack. He'll use it to snare six
9:51
rock hoppers that have pencil case sized black boxes taped
9:55
to their backs. The boxes, which he and Quilfelt attached
9:59
three days earlier, contain g p S data loggers that
10:03
record locations. Some also track diving and other movements. Now
10:08
the researchers will peel off the equipment and upload the
10:12
bird's foraging tracts. The information will give the scientists a
10:16
critical read on ocean conditions revealed by the bird's responses.
10:22
The Falklands riveted world wide attention in nineteen eighty two
10:26
when Argentina and the United Kingdom fought a brief but
10:29
brutal war for control over this remote, isolated smattering of islands.
10:35
To day, the archipelago and its thirty five hundred or
10:38
so human residents are administered by the UK as a
10:42
self governing British overseas territory. New Island, however, was named
10:48
by American whalers who landed there in the late seventeen hundreds.
10:53
The island went on to host more than a century
10:56
of commercial slaughter of seals, whales, and other wild life,
11:00
including an eighteen hundreds operation that rendered rock hoppers for
11:04
oil and an early nineteen hundreds whaling station. In eighteen thirteen,
11:09
Ew Island was the scene of an infamous sabotage when
11:13
a group of castaways rescued by American sea captain Charles H. Barnard,
11:18
stole his ship and left the Good Samaritan and his
11:21
crew marooned. More recently, like much of the Falklands, New
11:26
Island was used to farm sheep. For decades, thousands of
11:30
livestock roamed the island, leaving a trampled landscape in their wake.
11:36
Men soon Bound, a fifth generation British Falkland Islander, spent
11:40
his boyhood summers on New Island in the late nineteen
11:44
fifties and nineteen sixties, working for his uncle John Davis,
11:48
known as cracker Jack, who was then the island's owner,
11:52
over tea and Christmas Cake. In his Stanley summer home,
11:55
Bound tells me about helping cut down tussock and building
12:00
roads and fences as part of his uncle's quest to
12:03
transform the land. His uncle had a ruthless view of
12:07
nature boundarycalls. Anything that moved was killed, pretty much except
12:12
for the sheep. Such practices capped centuries of habitat damage
12:17
for the island's numerous species of sea birds. Grass clearing
12:22
underway since the whaler's burned huge swaths, exposed nests to
12:26
the elements and predators. Lush peat beds eroded down to
12:31
bare rock. Cats, rabbits and other imported animals and plants
12:35
crowded out natives. Today in a karmic u turn new
12:40
island as a national nature reserve. The turnabout began in
12:44
the nineteen seventies when the British conservationist Ian Strange bought
12:49
the island from Davis's family, removed the sheep, and started
12:53
restoring the native environment. The non governmental organization of Falkland's
12:58
Conservation now owns the u S island and continues its restoration,
13:02
with hopes of removing the island's invasive rabbits if it
13:06
can secure the funds. The island to day is largely uninhabited,
13:11
save for visiting scientists, day tripping crews, passengers, and a
13:15
pair of wardens who supervise a small seasonal tourist operation.
13:20
An old stone farm house stands along the path to
13:23
the rock Copper colony about half a mile away. The
13:27
path ends in this rebounding grassland at the island's crest,
13:31
where we follow our ears to the racous colony on
13:34
the other side. We emerge at the edge of a field.
13:38
In the sloping headland stamped by countless pink feet over
13:41
hundreds of years, The colony pulses with black and white
13:45
motion penguins bouncing up and down, rock tiers swirling around nests, greeting, preening, cuddling, fighting.
13:54
Around fifty three hundred rock hopper couples are breeding at
13:58
this particular colony this year. Quil Felt estimates that number
14:02
has ranged from some four thousand two twelve thousand in
14:06
recent years. Fluffy gray chicks about three weeks old, cling
14:11
to their father's bellies. Most nests hold a single chick,
14:15
a few have twins, and all of the babies have
14:18
their bills wide open for their returning mothers to regurgitate dinner.
14:23
Quil Felt and I crouch in the tall grass at
14:26
the colony's edge as Miscello wades into the fray, treading
14:31
gingerly over the poop streaked ground. He approaches one of
14:34
the females, snags her feet, scoops her up, and carries
14:37
her back to us. Poor Bertie, quill Felt says softly
14:40
to the squirming penguin. The scientists gently remove the bird's kit,
14:45
weigh her, and mark her white belly with the stripe
14:48
so she won't be recruited again. The activity draws the
14:52
attention of curious colony mates, which come over to watch.
14:56
You can be my next volunteer, Miscello tells one especially
15:00
nosy neighbor that tries to peer over his arm as
15:02
he works. The crowd grows as the released penguin hops
15:06
back to her nest, and Macello wades into the colony again.
15:11
Later in the scientist's field station, a two story wooden
15:15
building in New Island's Tiny settlement, decorated with artwork by
15:19
previous researchers, we crowd around a computer screen waiting for
15:23
the foraging female's data to assemble onto a map. Quilfelt
15:29
looks concerned as the tracks appear. Rather than foraging in
15:33
the open ocean, which in good years swarms with energy
15:37
rich crustaceans, the birds are foraging mainly between islands, where
15:42
they are likely catching tiny critters called lobster grill that
15:45
are harder to digest. That means the colony's food scenario
15:50
this year is probably suboptimal. Quilfelt says. The scientists will
15:55
deploy the penguin laggers again during the month they spend
15:58
on New Island, but the data so far jibs with
16:01
Quilfelt's observations about the colony's food supply. Two things when
16:06
we arrived caught my attention, she tells me. One is
16:10
that there are very few nests with two chicks. In
16:13
other years, we have quite a few. This observation relates
16:17
to Southern rock Hopper's unusual reproduction strategy, another adaptation to
16:22
their unforgiving environment. Females lay two eggs at separate times,
16:27
first a small A egg, followed by a larger B
16:31
egg several days later. In contrast to most other birds,
16:35
rock Hopper's second egg hatches up to three days earlier
16:39
than the first. That head start gives bee chicks a
16:43
crucial and generally lethal advantage over smaller siblings. When the
16:47
food supply is limited, as this year's appears to be.
16:51
It's a harsh practicality allowing parents to focus on their
16:55
most viable chick while providing a back up just in case,
16:59
and when food is abundant, both chicks can survive, helping
17:03
the population rebound. Quillfelt also notes that mothers are losing
17:08
more weight than usual while foraging this year, which means
17:11
they're working harder to provide for their chicks. They are okay,
17:15
she says, but it's not a luxury year. Sea birds
17:20
in the Falkland Islands rely on cold, nutrient rich water
17:24
flowing north from Antarctica to deliver food to colonies along
17:28
the coasts. Some years, however, the current weakens and warm,
17:32
nutrient poor subtropical water pushes south, resulting in spartan provisions.
17:38
Though rock hoppers, like most seabirds, have always grappled with
17:42
vacillating ocean conditions, The Falkland Islands lie just north of
17:46
the Southern Ocean, one of the planet's fastest warming ocean basins.
17:51
Around half or more of the atmosphere's excess heat our
17:55
oceans have soaked up since two thousand five is stored
17:59
in these antarctics and sub Antarctic waters, dialing up wind speeds,
18:03
intensifiing leather and disturbing ocean circulation across the region. Despite
18:10
their bravado, rock hoppers are highly sensitive to change. Research
18:15
by Quilfeldt, Mascello and their colleagues shows that even a
18:18
slight increase in sea temperature can disrupt the bird's food
18:22
supply and lower chick and adult survival, and moving south
18:27
to cooler waters isn't an option. Like many penguins, southern
18:32
rock hoppers nest only on islands, and the next islands
18:35
south of the Falklands are across a long, rough stretch
18:39
of the Southern Ocean. The constant westerly winds there would
18:43
push the little penguins east to the icy coasts of Antarctica.
18:46
Quilfelt says, there's no land there where they can build
18:50
new colonies. I think of the vast empty southern expanse
18:55
as I head south in a small twin engine airplane.
18:58
I meant of Falkland's government of air taxi, the main
19:01
way to travel between most of the few dozen small
19:04
settlements scattered across the archipelago. We are en route to
19:09
Sea Lion Island, the largest of a five island group
19:13
and the Falkland's southernmost inhabited outpost here clinging to wind
19:18
beaten headlands over treacherous seas are what biologist Crofts calls
19:23
the most extreme southern rock copper nesting sites of all
19:28
the plain lands. On a grass strip near the nature lodge,
19:32
the Crofts runs with her partner Mickey Reeves, a rutted
19:36
track meanders to rock hopper point. In her former job
19:40
monitoring sea birds from Falkland's conservation, Crofts visited rock copper
19:45
colonies throughout the Falklands and beyond. I can see what
19:48
she means about the extreme nature of this one. Rock
19:52
Hoppers cluster on the exposed landscape, a monochrome of bare
19:56
rocks and guano. A white, snowy sheath built scavenges at
20:01
Chick's corpse. Thudding waves spray sea water from the ocean
20:05
one hundred feet below, where tiny black and white figures
20:09
squirrel around battering rocks. Those that have already conquered the
20:13
death defying landing are leaping and clawing their way back
20:17
up the vertical path to the colony. I don't know
20:20
what the first rock hopper was thinking when he said, yeah,
20:23
I can get up there. Crofts muses, they're like these
20:26
adrenaline junkies really hardcore but sea lions. Rock Hoppers have
20:32
also suffered recent breeding disasters. Storms mowed down chicks in
20:37
the twenty ten to twenty eleven season and again in
20:40
twenty thirteen to twenty fourteen, twenty twenty to twenty twenty one,
20:44
and twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two. The mess
20:48
starvation that swept the archipelago in twenty sixteen wiped out
20:52
many of the island's adults. The twenty twenty storms also
20:56
drove away the imperial comorants that normally nest along side
21:00
rock hoppers and help shield each other's youngsters from predators.
21:04
The cormorant population never returned. Southern giant petrels devastated rock
21:10
hopper chip crops after that, so Crofts has been outfitting
21:14
the colony with some creative art and architecture. The results
21:18
are an amusing site. Packs of young rock hoppers mill
21:22
around stone slab structures that look like miniature at Flintstone's
21:26
houses there, chaperoned by a squadron of stone cormorant sculptures
21:31
watching silently. Crofts began building the bunkers in twenty twenty two,
21:36
after the back to back calamities sparked the idea to
21:39
give chicks a place to hide from future tempests and marauders.
21:44
The decoy cormorants cement casts made from a taxidermist's model,
21:49
were placed in hopes of luring real ones back to
21:51
the colony. The chicks are now around four weeks old
21:55
and are crashing a sort of penguin version of middle school.
21:59
Over the next several weeks, they'll spend more and more
22:02
time away from their parents, hanging out in groups, practicing moves,
22:06
and putting on attitude. They'll shed their baby fluff and
22:09
grow grayish, water resistant juvenile feathers, getting ready to continue
22:14
their journey to adulthood in the sea. As with humans,
22:18
the transition from nestling to fledgling is one of the
22:21
most vulnerable stages of a chick's life. Croft's efforts seemed
22:26
to be helping. The number of chicks that survived to
22:29
fledge on Sea Lion Island has steadily risen from eighty
22:32
six and twenty twenty two before the shelters were installed,
22:36
to two hundred sixty this year. The cormorants had a
22:40
slower start, despite the decoys being beautifully painted by Sarah
22:44
in realistic black and White. Reeves says, the living cormorants
22:48
continued to steer clear. Then this winter there must have
22:52
been quite a big storm, so they all got washed
22:55
around and messed up a bit, He goes on with
22:57
a grin the weather being decoys turned grayish, spattered with guano,
23:03
and the cormorants started breeding there again. Crofts aims to
23:08
get as many of the colonies rock hopper chicks pledged
23:10
as possible so they'll return as adults to help rebuild
23:14
the area's population from the current four hundred sum breeding
23:18
pairs to a more sustainable level of around five hundred.
23:22
She and Reeves are also trying to re establish the
23:25
native tussock grass, which, as in much of the Falklands,
23:29
was stripped during the island's former days as a farm.
23:33
The resort hosts a volunteer planting weekend every year. Photos
23:38
from the nineteen thirties show these cliffs covered with rock hoppers.
23:41
Crofts tells me it's that ship to living in our
23:45
world now that they're obviously struggling with it may be
23:48
impossible to stop the changes sweeping their ocean habitat, she adds,
23:53
but to help them on land at the breeding sites.
23:56
This is something we can actually do in the short
23:59
sub Antarctic summer. Chicks must grow up fast. I can
24:04
see them change day by day. The shy nestlings clinging
24:08
to their fathers two weeks ago have nearly doubled in size. Now,
24:12
bold five week olds bounce around the colony like fuzzy basketballs. Soon,
24:18
at the ripe age of around ten weeks, they'll be
24:20
off to sea. The chicks appear robust, but food shortage
24:25
effects are apparent. To the researchers. We've seen them fatter.
24:29
Quilfelt tells me some years they look like they're going
24:31
to burst. Still, she thinks they're doing okay. The twenty
24:36
twenty four to twenty twenty five breeding season on w
24:38
Island turn out to be average. She'll tell me later
24:41
after the chicks have fledged. Most of the single chicks survived.
24:46
The adults too, made it through the season without incident.
24:50
Crofts reports a similar outcome on Sea Lion Island. In
24:54
the short term, rock hoppers and the Falkland Islands appear
24:58
to be holding their own as long as there are
25:00
no other harmful events in between. The breeding success itself
25:04
would be okay, Quilfelt says of the new island colony,
25:08
But critical colonies here remain too small and produce too
25:12
few new breeders to buffer the population from further catastrophes.
25:17
The scenario is similar throughout the southern rock hopper's range,
25:21
and catastrophes are almost certain to come. Rock Hoppers already
25:26
push their bodies to the limit. I think of the
25:29
young rock copper leaping over a daunting chasm, the moms
25:34
up at sunrise hurling themselves into washing machine seas, the
25:37
half grown chicks trying out daredevil acrobatics. I ask the scientists,
25:43
can rock hopper's moxy be an asset to their survival?
25:47
Personality can be very important, Quilfelt tells me. Curiosity and
25:51
boldness can spur sea birds to find ways to adapt,
25:55
such as trying different foods and scouting out new breeding sites.
26:00
And character can shape genetics through natural selection. Micello ads
26:04
recalling a rock hopper that bit and scratched him during
26:08
censor deployment the other day. If I were a predator
26:12
that had a first encounter with that one, I would
26:15
leave that one in peace and go for another one.
26:18
He says, on my last day on New Island. After dinner,
26:25
we head back to the colony in search of guano.
26:29
We tail rock hoppers, waiting for them to produce samples
26:33
for diet analysis. When they deliver, quill Felt quickly scrapes
26:39
up the gooey output and drops it into a vial
26:42
miscello has ready. The little penguins cock their heads and
26:47
look us directly in the eye, as if wondering what's
26:50
up with these crazy giant creatures. Down at the landing,
26:56
a gentoo and imagellanic penguin appear to have washed up
27:00
at the wrong place. They stare at the rock hopper's
27:04
airborne maneuvers, crane their necks to scrutinize the powerful pink feet.
27:10
The spectators try to leap, but they fail to get
27:13
off the ground. With a sad backward glance at the
27:17
bouncing rock hoppers, the other penguins give up and waddle
27:22
back down to the sea, finally accompanying this article fun
27:29
fact who lives in the Falkland Islands. More than three thousand,
27:35
five hundred people live on the Falkland Islands, while around
27:39
one million penguins, five different species, nest there every summer.
27:46
The Island's agriculture department estimates that just under five hundred
27:51
thousand sheep reside on the island as well. This concludes
28:02
readings from the Smithsonian Magazine for to day. Your reader
28:06
has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and have
28:09
a great day.