Meet the Beaks

This is Rocky.



Rocky is an originally-named Rockhopper Penguin. Rockhoppers are not native to South Africa; they are found in the sub-Antarctic Pacific and Indian Oceans. He was picked up somewhere along the coast, and the theory is that Rockhoppers are really tame, and because of that, someone on a boat, maybe a cargo ship, picked him up as a "pet", and then realized they couldn't just keep him, and left him here.

So now he's at SANCCOB. He can't go back to where he's from, because he may have acquired disease or parasites that could infect the population at his colony, and anyway, he's having a bit of trouble with his feathers -- he started moulting and they don't want to grow back. We hope he'll eventually find a home at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, where they already have a thriving population of Rockhoppers. Until then, he keeps us entertained at SANCCOB with his hopping, beak nibbles, and constant jailbreaks.

By the way, he is the only penguin at SANCCOB that you can handle like this without getting permanent scars.

This is Fluffy.



He's been around SANCCOB for a long time. He is truly an arrested moulter -- his waterproof swimming feathers, for some reason, simply will not grow back. In the wild, he wouldn't be able to swim for any length of time, and he would probably starve. He's quite the Romeo around home pen, finding a new mate every season, apparently, while most African Penguins are strictly monogomous.

This is Penguin AP125.



You can't see it, but he has a wicked wound on his belly from where a seal tried to rip the fish out of his guts, like a bag of potato chips. It was the size of my hand when we arrived, and the skin and feathers were completely torn off, right down to the muscle. We've been applying a medicated cream to it every day, and it's healing well. Now, though, he's in moult, so there are feathers everywhere. Penguins in moult gorge themselves at the start of moult and then don't eat during the entire moulting process, as they obviously can't swim, so feedings lately have been interesting.

This is Edgar.



You can't tell from this side, but Edgar is missing one eye and his beak is crossed. He has trouble feeding because of this, so we keep him in Home Pen, where he gets his daily ration of fish and can swim in safety. Sometimes I see him in the corner, staring at the wall with his good eye. I think he's lost.

This is Penguin AP 280.



He arrived at SANCCOB with an injured foot. It kept flipping over and he was trying to walk on the top of his foot, which kept getting torn on the mats. The skin and muscle wouldn't heal, and he couldn't walk properly. A local vet did the amputation for us, and after two days in a bandage, 280 was back to his normal, aggressive self -- swimming like normal and learning to walk on his new stump, like a pirate. Captain Jack Penguin, anyone?

Bye-bye Birdie

It's time for another goodbye. The six weeks spent in Cape Town, and more specifically at SANCCOB with our penguin friends, have sped by.

Only six weeks ago we arrived back at our guest house after the first day of work, convinced that we were in for a long, dragging time. The birds were terrifying, and the work was exhausting. I couldn't believe how much laundry these birds produced, and the thought of pushing a meal of whole fish down the throat of a struggling bird wedged between my knees -- it was overwhelming. The first two days we counted the hours and minutes until lunch, and then we counted down to the end of the day.

Then we started to see the birds' personalities. We knew which ones were docile and sweet (relatively), and we knew which ones were positively evil. We watched them float in the pool, flipping from side to side. We herded their waddling, wiggling butts in and out of their fenced pens as we chased them, and we learned how to catch them without drawing (our) blood. At first it was a thrill -- dodging the mayhem of 30 penguin beaks reaching for your hand was an adrenaline rush unlike anything ever experienced. It was like... Fear Factor. The cuts and bruises we garnered became like war wounds, things to be displayed proudly to anyone who showed an interest.



Yesterday I sat next to my penguins and washed their feathers after a particularly messy feed. I sprayed them with the hose, lightly, and they stretched their necks high and fluttered their flippers. Their bodies plumped out as they ruffled their feathers and preened, and they wiggled their little tails as the droplets of water fell on their little torpedo bodies. I was hit with the realization that I was sitting next to a bunch of penguins. I was washing penguins, and for the past six weeks I'd been part of a team that's responsible for rehabilitating them and returning them to the wild. I realized how lucky we were to have had this experience, and how precious an experience it really was, how rare.



In our time at SANCCOB we've helped wash oiled penguins. We've helped penguins with crooked beaks, huge bite wounds, only one eye, and we've watched as penguins with missing or amputated feet have found a way to stand, walk, and run (waddle) again. We've seen skinny, weak babies leave a few weeks after admission as fat, vicious juveniles, and though they nip at our knees and bite our fingers, we cheer them on as they gain strength and vigour with every fish we give them. These penguins can't thank us, but we feel a sense of satisfaction in working here, because every bird that has left SANCCOB a healthy and strong is one more African penguin in this big, dangerous world, and that's a beautiful thing.

A Most Gratifying Day

Even though, thankfully, there have been no major oil spills along the coast of South Africa in a long time, we still get the occasional oiled penguin admitted at SANCCOB. This week four of them arrived, hungry, tired, and very, very angry.

Oil is a danger to marine animals and penguins in particular for numerous reasons. First, the oil sticks to their feathers and clumps them together so they're no longer waterproof. Oiled penguins get cold that much faster when they try to swim in the ocean, and venture back to land. As a result they don't go out looking for food and often starve to death. Oiled parents can't feed their chicks either. The oil also gets into their digestive systems and causes ulcers and bleeding. It's a bad, bad thing all around and it only takes a little bit of oil to cause problems for these little guys. The ones that came in this week were completely covered, from head to tail, flippers and all.

Our mission at SANCCOB, first of all, is to make the birds as healthy and strong as we can before washing them. They may get fish and rehydration fluids for a few days before bird meets soap, but we try to get them clean and healthy as soon as possible. Once they're strong, they get washed. First they're sprayed with another light oil that will help disperse the dirty crude oil that they're covered in. Then the real bathing begins, and I had the honour of participating in this week's washing session. It was one of the most specific, grueling, and meticulous things I've ever seen. It took us three hours to wash four birds; imagine the thousands that had to be washed after The Treasure spill of 2000!

The birds are partially immersed in a basin of warm water and a specific detergent known as BD-1, which was developed here in South Africa. One person holds the bird still, or as still as possible given the circumstances, and the other scrubs the bird with his or her hands. The head and flippers are scrubbed with a toothbrush. When the bathwater is too dirty, it is changed. All in all, some birds need four to ten water changes before they're pronounced oil-free.

This is when the rinsing process begins. One person holds the bird still, again, while another rinses all of the soap off with a hose. It's a very counterintuitive process, because the longer you rinse, the drier the underlying feathers become. Rinsing the penguin isn't complete until the feathers are completely dry underneath, while at the same time the two rinsers get completely wet. This takes about 20 minutes per bird, while the scrubbing takes 30 minutes or more, depending on how oiled the bird is.

The rinsers give the penguin a good second check to ensure that all traces of oil were indeed removed. At this point, rehydration fluids are given again and the bird is left to rest and recover from the hour-long struggle that he's given us. If only they knew we were helping them, maybe they wouldn't struggle so much! After washing, the penguins are gleaming white, cleaner than they have ever been in their entire lives.

After washing, the birds will stay for another one or two weeks to gain more strength and put weight on after days of not eating while oiled. Once they're healthy, they are released to their colony on nearby Robben Island.



Yesterday afternoon, BG and I got to partake in a release trip for 11 young penguins. These ones were not oiled, thankfully, but were at SANCCOB for various other reasons, and were going home! We crated them up with their breasts painted bright pink for easy identification. Then we boarded the boat and headed out into the deep ocean. It was a beautiful day to go home.

BG lost the coin-toss and had to stay aboard the boat while I got to go down to the water to release the little ones. It was such a special moment, tender even, releasing the penguins into the ocean for the first taste of freedom they'd had in a long time, perhaps ever, if they were reared in captivity. They huddled together at first, bewildered at the vast expanse of water before them, but then started to make their way towards land and their new homes on the beach at Robben Island. Some of these penguins we have been feeding and caring for for nearly four weeks already, and we have watched them grow enormously and go from the bottom of the pecking order to the top. We can say that we've helped these little penguins get a boost in life, sending them back home with some extra fish in their bellies and a bit of extra love.

It was a great day for penguins, and a great day for us.

This is a First

I have not felt a desire for sushi at all since arriving here two weeks ago.

I wonder why.

That Sweet Smell

This is an African Penguin.



(photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

We're one week into this whole penguin thing and it's definitely on the upswing. In fact, I am ready to admit that I'm having a ton of fun! We are successfully handling the birds, and have settled comfortably into the routine of feed-tube-scrub-scrub-feed-tube-scrub. Scrub. I haven't gotten any more bites (if you don't count the one on my shoulder and the one on my arm, as they're both my own stupid fault.) And I've discovered a new favourite thing, which is spraying the birds down with the hose after every meal, to remove the oils from the fish they've just devoured. They love the hose, and lean forward into the spray, closing their eyes and tilting their heads back and flapping their flippers in (my imagined) ecstacy. Sometimes I do it randomly in the middle of the day for good reason at all, just because they are so darn cute.

SANCCOB is currently caring for under a hundred penguins, which is a good thing for a number of reasons. It means we're not being run ragged, and it means that the colonies of penguins on the coast and surrounding islands are healthy and that there have been no oil spills or dumps along the coast. In 2000, there was an oil spill of epic proportions off the coast of South Africa, when an oil tanker called The Treasure ran aground. During the days following this disaster, SANCCOB cleaned and cared for 16,000 oiled penguins, while another 1,100 chicks were cared for elsewhere. In total, an estimated 40,000 birds were moved from the contaminated area, oiled or not, and saved from indisputable suffering and death.

It's absolutely boggling.

It's also inspiring, and is one more reason I bounce out of bed early every morning, totally thrilled to be doing this work.

They're Cute. They Waddle. They Bite.

We are three days into our six week volunteer stint at SANCCOB in Cape Town. SANCCOB does very important work, namely rescuing and rehabilitating injured, oiled, or otherwise weakened African penguins and returning them to the wild whenever possible. In cases where the birds are permanently injured and would be unable to fend for themselves, they are introduced as permanent residents at the centre, and spend their days being hand fed sardines and swimming in the pool... it's a good life.

There is a basic triage system set up at SANCCOB; at admission, the birds are assessed and placed in different groups according to their strength and the severity of any injuries. Oiled birds are separated and get cleaned after a few days of rehydration and feeding. Very weak or sick birds get special care in the ICU; from there, they move into different groups where they get hand-fed fluids, medications, and fish. They have to rebuild their swimming endurance with forced swims of increasing duration, and once they can swim happily for an hour and are in all respects healthy and strong, they are released back into the wild.



I had visions of cuddling up to adorable, waddling penguins, offering them fish as they accepted them -- gently -- from my hands. Instead, I find myself sneaking up to the brood, arms and hands covered in protected neoprene. They snap at my fingers and arms, sometimes my knees and toes, but I'm wearing oilskins and rubber boots, so it doesn't hurt too much. Suddenly I snatch one (there is definitely a technique here) and take it over to be given fluids, or fish, or pills. It. is. terrifying. My heart pounds each time I go for a bird.

I am being terrorized by a three-kilogram penguin. I now think I know where they got that old moniker, the Jackass Penguin.

When not chasing and/or herding penguins, we are scrubbing stuff. Or washing stuff. Or disinfecting stuff. One hundred-plus penguins make a lot of poop, and it's got to go somewhere, right?