Celebrating Penguins
January 20, 2023 – Penguin Awareness Day
Hey, here’s a little something to
brighten your day. Did you know that this past December, two penguins named
Pringle and Widget paid a little visit to a UK senior’s home to spread a little
Christmas cheer? And you thought Christmas was reserved for reindeer! They
dropped by for a day, spending time with various residents and bringing a lot
of cheer to them and their families.
The Charm of Penguins
And who can blame the residents
for being delighted? Everyone loves a penguin. They’re cute, smart and, in many
ways, amazing. It’s safe to say that they’re one of the most beloved members of
the avian kingdom. Here are some of the reasons why.
·
They come in a wonderful array of shapes and
sizes. The smallest is the Blue or Fairy Penguin who grow to about 30 cm (12
inches) tall and weighs around 1.5 kg (3 lbs.) The largest are the Emperor
Penguins who can stand as tall as 1.3 m (4 ft) and weigh in at 40 kg (88 lbs.)
·
As impressive as they are, they don’t begin to
compare to their ancient ancestors. The fossil record shows us that, about 37
million years ago, penguins could grow to 2m (6.5 ft) and weigh over 200 kg
(220 lb)! Yowtch!
·
I recommend you pop by YouTube sometime and
watch a video of penguins swimming. It’s like a great, underwater arial trapeze
act.
·
Their waddling gait has always left us believing
that penguins can’t really walk. At least not well. But species have been known
to walk and toboggan as much as 100 km (62 mi) to get where they’re going. When
was the last time you took a stroll that long?
·
If you boil one, of their unfertilized eggs, the
rather than turning white, it actually becomes transparent. (But they’re also
said not to taste so good.)
·
They are absolutely death-defying divers. The
Emperor Penguins in particular can dive as deep as 500 m (1600 ft) and stay
down for as much as 20 minutes!
The Plight of the Penguin
There’s just everything to love
about a penguin. So, it’s no wonder everyone is so concerned that there’s one
death-defying stunt that they haven’t mastered: sharing a planet with us.
Almost every species is on the decline, sometimes at terrible rates. One of the
worst cases is the King Penguins of Île aux Cochons which is a barren little
Island somewhere between Madagascar and the Antarctic. Recently, scientists
have been trying to find out why approximately 90% of their population has
vanished without a trace.
Well, it has an awful lot to do
with the damage we’ve done to the polar ice caps. You see, Mother Nature has
set up her domain in an incredible intricate and beautiful but finely balanced
web of give and take. There’s a certain type of algae that grows on ice. This
alga is a food source for a species of shrimp known as krill. The krill, in
turn, are a food source for the penguins. As the ice at the bottom of the word
melts, the algae have no place to thrive and so there is less and less
available. With less algae to eat, there will also be fewer krill. With the
krill stock declining, the penguins have a harder and harder time hanging on.
But the thing is, it works in the
other direction, too. This is what we mean by a balance of give and take. The
penguins are a food source for other animals such as sea lions and killer
whales. If the penguins were to disappear, unless these other animals could
adapt to eating something else, we would almost certainly see a decline in our
ocean mammals, too. Which would, in turn, impact another species and another.
Celebrating Penguin Day
Numerous measures have been put
in place to try and avert this fate, including laws prohibiting the hunting of
any of the penguins or their eggs. (So, no hard boiling them to watch them go
transparent, please.)
Another measure, and one you can
participate in, is Penguin Awareness Day, sometimes known as National Penguin
Day. Either way, it’s a day for you to have a little fun while acknowledging
our little friends. How can you do that? Well, there’s all sorts of ways.
1. Wear something with a penguin on it. A shirt, a
necklace, a pair of socks. Anything will do, really, so long as it shows your
support of penguins.
2.
Watch a movie or documentary that features
penguins.
3.
Visit the penguins at your local zoo or aquarium
if you live in a place where that’s possible.
4.
If you have kids, read about penguins together.
These are just some suggestions.
I’m sure you have some good ideas yourself.
Saving the Penguins
But here comes the big question.
What can we do to protect these precious wild creatures? Is it possible for an
ordinary, everyday person to make a difference? Even if that person lives
hundreds or thousands of miles away from the nearest wild penguin (which most
of us do)? Yes! Here are a few ideas
1. Avoid one-time plastic products such as plastic
cutlery, straws, shopping bags and six-pack rings, all of which pollute the
ocean and pose a threat to the marine wildlife.
2. Make sure any seafood products you buy or order
in a restaurant come only from environmentally safe fisheries.
But most importantly, make sure
you’re continually learning about our beautiful wildlife and teaching others
when you can. Because that’s the best way of all start protecting our wildlife.
Embrace them!
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