By Lauren Wanko
Correspondent
They eat, swim and play — a day in the life of the African penguins at Jenkinson’s Aquarium. During our visit, the curious birds liked nibbling at my boots and checking out the camera lens.
“They’re like little kids and every one of them has a personality in this colony, so everything around them they have to touch and feel and make sure it’s OK and it’s not going to hurt them,” said Jenkinson’s Aquarium Assistant Supervisor of Penguins Reagan Quarg.
Here they’re protected. But the African penguin’s listed as endangered.
“Back in the 1950s there were actually an estimated 140,000 mating pairs total in South Africa. Today it’s actually only 17,000,” Quarg said.
Quarg insists global climate change, habitat loss, oil spills and overfishing in South Africa are a few of the factors contributing to their declining population, but at this aquarium the penguin numbers are growing.
Quarg says Jenkinson’s Aquarium wants to keep strong, genetically hardy penguins. That’s why they’re part of the African penguin species survival plan. The goal is to replenish the population and put them back into the wild if necessary over time. The aquarium has 22 penguins. They’re all named and identified with bracelets.
There are 18 species of penguin. The birds can’t fly.
“These flippers, or wings you can call them, they are made for swimming. They are more like paddles on a boat,” Quarg said.
The water’s where they hunt for food — squid or other small fish. The penguins can swim up to 15 to 20 miles per hour in the water.
“They do things based on texture. They have no taste buds and no teeth so it all has to be how the fish feels,” said Quarg.
The birds’ counter shading camouflage helps protect them at home in South Africa.
“They have a white belly and a very dark back. So it’s kinda like a hide and seek game that they’re doing. The white will blend them in the top of the sunlight ocean water, but the black back will blend in when they dive down to the depths,” Quarg said.
At a glance you can’t tell if these penguins are boys or girls.
“When they are one to two months, we take a little blood sample from their foot. We send it to a lab and they are actually looking for a red blood cell. They can tell chromosomes that way,” explained Quarg.
Jenkinson’s Aquarium’s oldest penguin is 29. Quarg says they can live up to 15 to 20 years in the wild. The air temperature at home in the aquarium is kept at 70 degrees, but they can live in even warmer temperatures in South Africa. The birds have freckles on their belly — something researchers are using to study the penguins.
“Not every penguin is alike. It’s actually like a fingerprint for African penguins. If you have a bunch of black and white subjects you don’t know who’s who so they actually will take photos of the penguins’ belly. You can literally track their history or track how well they’re doing,” Quarg said.
At the aquarium, it’s usually visitors taking the photos. It’s pretty obvious these penguins aren’t camera shy.