And I'm Madeline Walden and this is Aquarium of the Podcific, a podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Podcific Southern California's largest aquarium.
Join us as we learned alongside the experts in animal care, conservation and more. Welcome back to Aquarium of the Podcific My name is Erin Lundy. I'm the conservation coordinator for mammals and birds and an animal care specialist and I'm joined by my co host
Hello, I'm Madeline Walden, I'm the Aquarium's Digital Content and Community Manager. Those are some long titles we have long title, like it an Erin, actually, I have something else you need to add to your title today. And that is sea otter. Pretender sea otter method actor. Thank you. Can you tell me a little bit about your day today?
Of course. So today has been a little bit of a hectic day. And we'll get into sort of all the exciting things that have been happening here at the Aquarium today. But we also performed an animal escape drill this morning. That is something we need to do annually to maintain our AZA accreditation. We are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which is an agency that makes sure that there are certain standards being upheld, making sure animal welfare is really good that there's education and conservation, and basically a list of criteria that says hey, this institution deserves this accreditation. So part of it is that we have to do animal escape drills on an annual basis. And for me, I got to pretend to be the escaped animal today. And as Madeline mentioned, I was a sea otter method actor. And it was actually a lot of fun. So essentially, I quote unquote, escaped from a habitat and was quote unquote, seen by spotted one of our staff, who then call and say, Hey, this is a drill. This is a drill, but I've just seen a sea otter escape from their habitat, this is where they are, and all of the appropriate staff come to respond. And it's a really cool multi departmental effort to recapture me the sea otter. And although it is very unlikely that anything like that would ever happen, it's really important for us to always be prepared for any type of emergency. So having people on site who are trained to respond to that is critical. And it was actually really fun to pretend to be a sea otter turns out you can be whatever you want to be when you are the escaped animal you can run around, there's no rules, you can hiss at your coworkers, which is generally frowned upon. I refrained from biting Thankfully, this time, this time, you never know about next time it's different from your day to day. Not Oh, you mean restrain? Yeah, I refrained. I had to sign that paperwork that said I'm not doing that anymore. But it was really fun. And it culminated in me being captured in a net, and transported quote, unquote, back to my habitat. So it was a great thing to practice in sort of a really fun team bonding experience. We have people from the education department explaining what exactly is going on to our guests who just see me running around with marker and hissing at people. I promise, I'm normal. This is part of a professional occupation. And then we have people from our security department who would, quote unquote, secure the perimeter and would do that in the case of a real escape. So we practice everything as if it's real, just so that everyone's prepared. Yeah. And it's pretty fun, to be honest. So that was the morning. And the other thing that's been going on today, which is equally exciting, if not more exciting, to be honest, is that today we launched the Aquarium's 25th anniversary event
true. So today we had our press event. It's been a long day. It's been a very fun day, though. We had our press event this morning, our podcast record now. And then this evening, we have our VIP kickoff as well. So we are kicking off our 25th anniversary celebration. That includes a reimagined gallery that's opening July 1, and we're talking in case you're listening in the future. We are talking about July 1 2023, which gallery is being renovated. So we have reimagined our Southern California Gallery, and I'm really excited to see how it's coming together. It's going to be a beautiful new space. I think our guests will really really like it.
That space hasn't been renovated since the aquarium opened either. So that'll be really cool to see what they are doing. And I know our life support department and facilities and really all of the Aquarists who are involved in that. I've been working really hard to put some time together. Yeah, and it's school. I mean, certainly we hear a lot of construction day to day sometimes I poked my head in there and like how's it all looking in there. It looks rad. Yeah, it's really cool. So if you guys are ever here, or if you're here later this year in 2023. Please walk through that space. It's all being totally updated. reimagined should have some really innovative exhibits as well which is cool to see. And I'm really happy that we have that going on. It's gonna be awesome. Speaking of a species that doesn't live anywhere near Southern California. Today we are going to be talking all about our Magellanic penguins. Our Magellanic penguin habitat is located on the top floor outside and it is called our June keys penguin habitat. If you were to visit you will see all 19 of are beautiful Magellanic penguins that are native to South America but a very comfortable living here in warm weather. Today we are going to have on one of our wonderful agriculturist Ashley Loper, who is going to tell us all about our Magellanic penguins, some of the shenanigans that are apparently lots of shenanigans that are going on there. And a little bit about the soap opera that seems to be happening up at our penguin habitat. So
a reality TV show up there in the best way in the best way.
So we're gonna welcome on Ashley. Thank you guys so much for joining us. So today we have the pleasure speaking to Ashley Loper, who is one of our aviculturist here at the Aquarium. Hi, Ashley. Welcome.
Hi, thank you.
What is your job title? And what do you do here?
Like Erin said, I'm an aviculturist here at the Aquarium. So that means I take care of all of the birds I'm cross trained on a little bit of all of them a little bit, a little bit of all of them. So I am cross trained and all of the birds sections. So that is lorikeets penguins, diving birds, like the puffins, some of our ambassador species, but I primarily work with the aquatic birds is what we kind of call them. So that would be the penguins, the puffins and the other diving birds. And then also the waterfowl and shorebirds.
Do you have a favorite species that you work with?
I moved here to this job actually to work with puffins. Yeah, I worked with penguins at my other job, but I do not have puffins.
Okay, forget the theme of the podcast today. We're talking puffins only. We will have you back on top puffins because I think that's an animal that gets forgotten about sometimes I think so too.
They actually weren't on the website a lot when I was looking at the job where I was like, I don't even know if they have that. But my friend was like, no, they do.
They for sure have puffins on Yeah, our diving bird exhibit is really cool. We have some of our animals have been here since before the aquarium opened in that habitat. So they are charter animals as well. Well, you said that you worked with penguins at your last job. How long? Have you been working with penguins? And why did you get into it?
I've been working with penguins about six years, I think total. And I got into it because I loved birds. I actually went to college knowing I wanted to work with birds. I just didn't know how. And I got my first internship at the Alaska sealife Center working with puffins up there in Alaska. And I fell in love with seabirds and aquatic birds. So I ended up kind of shuffling around a couple of different jobs finding exactly where I fit in. And I did education for a little bit before jumping over to penguins once again. And I happen to land at an aquarium that had them and I learned a lot about them. And I feel like that's a really strong point for me. So I really liked working with them.
I think something that people often don't realize is that getting into this field, you sort of you know, work a couple of different internships or different positions to see what's the right fit. And even if you think, Hey, this is the species for me, you might not be right. Like I I got hired as a mammal person and now I'm mostly a frog. And I think that's kind of how it goes in sort of the zoo field.
It's kind of cool. I hear a lot of people I love to convert non bird people into birds. That's like my hobby. Nobody thinks they're gonna love birds. Like let me tell you how fun they are.
And I think penguins are sort of a really good transition point because they are a lot like some of our mammal species even though they are birds. So penguins are pretty great. I used to work a little bit more focused with our penguins, and our colony here and they are wonderful.
at the Aquarium of the Pacific. We have Magellanic penguins. Have you ever worked with a different species of penguin?
I did. So my background was actually with African penguins, which is like the cousin of the Magellanic penguins sort of they look very similar and they act pretty similar but there was a couple of differences that I got used to when I transitioned over the Magellanic penguins a little bit more here for what I was told Magellanics were nicer which so far I actually agree with are pretty nice. So far Magellanic penguins are a little bit nicer as far as penguins good to know we have good penguins. I think so. So I've been a big fan of working with them. Magellanic penguins also have a migration season which African penguins did not have. So that was an interesting difference.
Yeah, I figured that was just kind of across the board that they all had similar seasons, like, yeah, that was
a new mindset for me what I got here and I started hearing people it was like, well, it might not be that dramatic, and that I saw the behavior change for migration. Oh, it's very distinct.
We'll get into that. Yeah, there
are seasons animals. Yeah. For our penguin colony, specifically do how do we have our penguins? Where did they come from? And sort of what's the conservation story behind our penguin colony?
That is a good question. So we've got penguins from a couple different places. So some of them came to us from other AZA, zoos and aquariums. Some of them were hatched right here at Aquarium of the Pacific. We have a couple of those. And then some of them were wild rescues. So actually in Brazil, there was a mass stranding event a couple years ago, and there was a lot of penguins that washed up and needed rescue. And a few of those were deemed non releasable. So when that happened, they tried to look for permanent homes for them, and we were able to house a couple of them. So some of our residents here. Robbie, Kate and Roxy are all rescue penguins from the wild.
That's pretty cool. So we don't really know what their history or their background is, but it seems like they're doing pretty well here. They have families here.
They definitely do. I think they've both been parents are I think Roxy has had a chick and
yeah, Roxy's mom to, seven, I think or she's had a lot of babies. Wow.
That was that many I knew she had some but seven, prolific.
well represented genetics is what we like to say.
But that's good. That was wild genetics that we didn't have in the population. And now we do.
Yeah, so I'm gonna stop right there because I think people are gonna help here. Wait, penguins in Brazil? And then we have penguins here in Long Beach, California. How are we able to have the species of penguin in a warm habitat? I think people always assume penguins, cold, freezing ice blocks running around. That's
probably the most common question I get by the exhibit is everybody looks at him and goes, where's the snow and ice, are they warm. So that's one of my favorite penguin misconceptions is everybody pictures them all in Antarctica? I think because those are the guys that get the dramatic nature documentary made about them. Everybody wants to show you the ones of snow and ice in the blizzard like there are pigments all over the southern hemisphere. So not just in South America like the Magellanic penguins, but they're in Africa. Like I said, I worked with African penguins. They're in the Galapagos Islands around Australia and New Zealand. So there are lots of penguin species that actually live in more temperate warm climates. So Southern California, the climates not so different from what they would be getting in Brazil. Yeah,
that's interesting. Do you know where how penguins evolved? What are their sort of closest relatives in the bird world?
I read about this a couple of years ago. You could fact check me on it. I think it's loons. Oh, you would think it would be the other seabirds like the I don't know, gannets, and MERS and like acids, but I think it might be loose.
That's interesting.
I would have to fact check it. That was a while back. I
read that it's cool.
I can see it, for sure.
That's interesting that seemingly like the puffins and the penguins develop very similar coloration of like that black and white on the belly, but yeah,
it it's fun puffins kind of fill that niche in the northern hemisphere, and then you have penguins in the southern hemisphere could also fly so
they win in that regard. Yeah, penguins cannot. If anyone confirmed
why do they develop that coloration
that is actually camouflage, believe it or not, so you don't think of black and white being camouflage and blending into well, but if you think about their lifestyle, they are swimming a lot out in the ocean as penguins do. And if there's a predator swimming from below, and they happen to look up, they're gonna see the white belly of the penguin. So that blends in with the light coming in from above, and then if there's a predator like flying over them, they're gonna see the black back which is going to blend in a little bit more to the water. So that's type of camouflage called counter shading.
Speaking of their predators, what are predators to the Magellanic penguin.
So there are some seals and sea lions that will predate on them and then on land, they have some of the bigger like birds of prey and see birds like skuas, which is a crazy kind of seabird but they will go after them as well for especially for the chicks. And then I read recently, Pumas actually are a really big problem from actually like, what you don't think about Wow, yeah. Okay, so they do have some predators.
I did not. When I was surprised
by that one to a shocking tale.
I think that's something people don't always realize is that penguins, at least Magellanic penguins are incredibly terrestrial for a large portion of the year. And so people don't really think about that, right. Like they are nesting on land. Yeah.
And for those nests, they will sit there in that spot and try to defend them. So sometimes, yeah, that makes them a little bit more vulnerable. There's some penguins I might bet against.
Admiral Fancypants.
You'd be surprised, yes,
he could hold his own.
So now that we've talked a little bit, we do have a penguin named Admiral Fancypants that might be the best name.
I think it's one of the best names ever.
But they all do have pretty individualistic personalities, right? They each have their own, like yes, like you wouldn't think
so. But they definitely all have very individual personalities. And it can come down to as specific as food preferences. So there are some that might eat only a certain type of fish. And not only that, but some of them you have to hold that fish a very particular way or they will not take it from you. So they are definitely quirky little animals that 72
degrees. Exactly needs to be held at a particular angle. Yeah, exactly.
I have a feeling I know which penguin you're referring to. I believe
you do so she has an interesting name but the pickiest penguin
ironically is named Whatever but he does not eat whatever she eats what type of fish and you have to hold it very specific.
Okay, we need to talk about Whatever's name means story. Do you Do you know her name? I
don't know her story Madeline.
I have to shout out to our past Tiktok lives have been able to learn a lot about our animals. But whatever was named, she came from a different another AZA accredited facility. And they had so many chicks that year. That they literally said just name her Whatever. And they took that very literally. I
always wondered, like, imagine that scenario, and I just never had it confirmed and she's currently our oldest. Yeah, she is our oldest penguin. I think she's 22 going on 23 Very soon, I think by the end of the month. We're in early June.
How long do they live typically?
So out in the wild like 15 years would be average are getting up there in age in zoos and aquariums. I have worked with penguins as old as 37. And I believe their 40s Wow. So I think that process Yeah, very highly to the care that they get here. Sure
what types of symptoms of being geriatric well, they
develop, it's a lot like things people will develop. And if you have aging pets, it's very similar. So you'll start to see cataracts sometimes as they age. Also, arthritis is a big one that we watch first. So you'll start to notice them not moving around as easily, or being a little bit more stiff penguin arthritis. I actually worked with a penguin that got acupuncture for arthritis. It's not crazy. And I was not necessarily a believer, but I'm I saw just a different penguin. Yeah. Wow, that's
so cool. Right?
So I have never had acupuncture.
I always love it. How much better are animals sometimes get treated? And like the people are like, Yeah, I've never eaten food this expensive in my life, or acupuncture and all of these specific references
rate a
seafood every number one comment we get on our tiktoks of Penguin physical exams like, wow, this penguin has better health care than? Yeah, absolutely.
Which is, well, we can talk a little bit about that health care and sort of what goes into, you know, the husbandry and overall care of our penguins. What does a day in the life of a penguin caretaker look like?
It's a lot of cleaning. They poop a lot. So it is a lot of cleaning, starting off in the morning trying to get everything ready. We are scrubbing the habitat, we are vacuuming if we need to, because they have a little a lot of little rocks on their habitat right now, especially nesting. So we sometimes have to vacuum those up. It's going in and checking out everybody right now we're feeding them two times a day. But if we see their appetite really increase, sometimes we'll feed them up to three times a day. And it is hand feeding every single individual Penguin, which helps us monitor how much that they are eating. So we do that twice a day as well.
What about like a veterinary exam? How might you go about that?
Veterinary Yeah, so they all have annual physicals every single year. So just like you might take your dog or cat to the vet, we take our penguins to the vet. And we're lucky enough that we have a veterinarian two veterinarians that work full time right here on site that we're able to take those birds to so we will schedule that will get everybody to go in, they get listened to so they check their heart, their lungs, they check their feet to make sure there's no sores or anything. They'll check their eyes inside their mouth. I mean, it's really thorough, and then they also get full blood work done as well to make sure there's nothing else going on under that we can't find. Okay,
we talked a little bit about what they eat at our aquarium. But something that I want to talk about is their mouths and how out of their mouths terrifying they are. So scary the way a penguins mouth look.
Yeah, if you've never seen it, Google it right now. Right now definitely
attach a video in the show notes to you so you can see it. It's pretty
crazy. So they actually have these fleshy little I'm going to call them spikes. I feel like that's the most accurate.
They are my picture. Yeah. Spikey. Terrifying name
for them. It's it's pipilae. But they are textures on the roof of their mouth and also their tongue so kind of spikes above and below. But it's because they're eating fish and fish are very, very slippery. If you've ever tried fishing or holding fish, you know that I dropped them more than I like to
or frozen fish.
I've wiggling fish out the ocean would be fishing for those live fish and trying to catch them. And those populate just give some extra texture and help them hang on to and grip those fish
because they're swallowing them whole right? They're not chewing. Yeah,
it's impressive. So they do swallow all of their food whole. They don't tear it up like birds of prey. And they are able to eat something about the same size as their wing and they swallow it completely. Whoa, I
didn't realize it that big. Wow.
Yeah, there are some where I take out a big herring and I go oh, there's no way. They make it look easy. Like it's nothing.
I think my favorite thing when they eat like a really big fish is they get these weird little shakes after
I call it the trash compactor. Because it looks like they eat a lot. And then they put their neck like they compress it down in their body. And it's like they're squishing everything down. So even some of my volunteers that have started saying, Oh, the trash compactor is happening. That's
a really good way to describe it. What kinds of fish are penguins typically eating.
So here we feed them two types of fish as the main part of their diet. So they get capelin and herring, but we're also able to throw some extra stuff in there every now and then for a variety so sometimes we'll feed squid which is not always a favorite, but
some of them want to learn that across some animals with our animals, but
it's not popular. No one really
like there's animals that really love squid so much that they swallow that whole and some that don't like it at all and they maybe put up a little bit of a pout
yeah, they might have it and spit it out. Recently we also tried a little fish called Night smelt which again was not very popular. We had some that didn't seem to care they would eat anything and then we had some that would absolutely not eat it whatever they would take it and walk away yeah, Whatever. And it looks so similar to the Katelyn but somehow they are able to tell it apart. They know
how does your beak feel the different like what is different about this that you know
things their sense of smell?
They think really good for them do not have a great sense. Oh, Yeah, yeah
they are a little stinky I can I can attest to that.
Well, what is their, their natural habitat is all poop, right?
Yeah, they actually nest and dig and poop and they live in, you know, colonies of 200,000 individuals. So they're pooping all the time a lot. It's not smell great. So they don't that's not one of their stronger senses is their sense of smell. And that's probably a good thing for them.
Let's talk a little bit about their habitat here at the Aquarium so they are not living in their poop here. Let's talk about their daily.
Every single morning is a full scrub down and we also host in the pm as well so they are not living in their poop here.
And what about those holes on the habitat? Where do those lead to it's a lot
of fun. So those are their nesting burrows. If you see them going and hanging out in front of those or going into them, it leads behind the scenes through a little tunnel into a kennel. So we actually have kind of like it is a dog kennel not kind of like a dog kennel. They haven't seen dog kennels back there that we have kind of modified for our birds, we have substrate in there and they are able to come back behind the scenes and nest and then we're able to use the kennel door and peek at them if we need to and feed and do any sort of maintenance.
I think it's it's pretty interesting. You think of birds typically is like like big open spaces. But a penguin is creating this little hole and would like burrow in it like that seems so
they would and they will if they will find little spaces that look like holes. Like if you have anything vaguely around like a jacket that's kind of propped up. They're like, can I go?
Fit? I sit
somewhere where they're like, is this a burrow? For me, I would go that instinct is pretty strong. So in the wild, they would nest maybe under plants and under bushes. They like to feel pretty confined, but they will also just totally dig a burrow.
That's so crazy. Digging birds.
Dig those birds. I think those
birds are all right.
So speaking of those nest boxes, we have several penguin pairs on in our habitat do they mate for life? Or is that? Are they monogamous? Are they monogam-ish?
Monogamy ish is a good way to put it. I say that they are monogamous in the same way. Sometimes humans are monogamous. Got it. Sometimes you stay together for life and things are great. And then sometimes it doesn't work out and you go your separate ways and try again with someone new. So we do have that happen. So again, I've worked with penguins that have been together 20 plus years, same individual, right good love story.
And then some bad loves that I've
had some drama and some that like to shop around a little bit more before they settled
for them. I always recommend that chop around a little bit. Whatever
penguins, you feel like you should do the most part, they do tend to stay with the same partner, they'll come back year after year, I think it's like an 80% fidelity rate for some 80% of them will stay together depending on the species
that might be better than people it is. Now I'm imagining the year of the penguin. And we'll talk a little bit about seasonality for these animals, but they are coming back to the same mate year after year. But that's following migration, right like right, so how do they find each other?
They I think say same time next year. But they don't necessarily stay together out in the ocean either out so they will start traveling together necessarily not necessarily see you next right like sometime next year. And they also return to the same burrow generally year after year. So that is time and a place breeding season. This burrow, catch you next year.
Love you. Bye.
See you next year after I'm done migrating. Do you think that there is evidence of potentially recognizing each other by how they look? Or how can they in a colony of 200,000 Penguins? How do you find your your loved one.
So I do think they can tell each other apart visually, there are some that definitely seem to have beef with one another. But they also know their mates and then audibly they can tell each other apart to by vocalizations, which is pretty crazy. And I've seen it in action. I've seen a bird not be visible to another one. So it could be behind a door or just around the corner and the habitat and they'll actually call out to their mate and their mate will swim over and walk over to where their mate is calling for them.
Excuse me, where's my wife?
Exactly when they know the voice and they will respond to it and they'll start looking around for their mate. So that's a really crazy way they tell each other apart is by their voice kind of romantic. I know. I don't know if I can tell some of my friends apart by they're probably not all of them. Yes. I don't know. I guess on the radios we tell each other apart pretty good. Maybe I'm selling us short.
So that all sounds very sweet. And we know how adorable the penguin is. But I guess there's two kind of terrifying things about them. It's their mouths and also their honking their vocalizations. It's not necessarily scary, but I think it's so unexpected.
It is not what you would expect. Ashley what
is a penguin sound like I've heard Erin has a really good impression. I heard Scott does it's pretty good. Better keep that in there.
This is my impression of two penguins jousting. We'll see how that came through.
Part time foley artist Yeah.
I'm a penguin. And now Madeline What does their honk sound like how I'm the professional Scott slowly playing it. That's what they do they sound like
they sound like a donkey. Yeah, that's what I hear a lot. Yeah, that's very much like a donkey braying. I will not make you listen to me do that. But I do have another call that I really like. And it's more of a woo. And that's Erin calls it Penguin Marco Polo, their way of saying, Where are you, I'm over here, but just give a little Ooh, to locate each other sometimes. And it's very cute.
So sweet.
I'm sure that that's really important if they got separated out my grading so that they're not just one penguin all by themselves, I've heard it called a contact call. And that that low frequency carries a lot further over a long distance so that if they're on the ocean, like oh,
you're coming in after a successful day of hunting for fish, and you're walking through a colony of 200,000 Penguins. And you got to find your penguin. Hello.
Anybody. It is definitely not the noise you expect to come. Now I carry different when
it is not. And they will all be out there doing that at the same time. Some days you can't even hear yourself think because it is just like being surrounded by very loud donkeys.
They're having a conversation. You just don't understand. Can you tell them apart by their vocalizations?
I like to pretend that I can't I'm not great at it sometimes that sometimes they'll be around the corner and we'll hear them and we're like, Oh, I bet that's this or something like that. And I sometimes we get it sometimes we're pretty good. But not all the time. Not as good as a penguin is about telling us
Well, we have help telling them apart, right? We have each of our penguins is wearing a cute little bracelet on their flipper, called their bead band. And can you tell us a little bit about why that might be?
Yeah, it is stylish and function. So that is the way we tell them apart. So everybody's got their own unique color combination on there. And we actually have ladies banded on the left and the males banded on the right hand side. And that's one of the ways to ID them. So they do look very similar. I don't know if you've noticed, but they are all black and white. pretty tricky to tell them apart. So those little bead bands are very helpful, especially when you're learning the penguins. But then if you are in there every single day, and you're seeing them, I really don't even use the bands that much anymore, because you'll start to notice very distinct facial features that they have like some of them have more white cheeks than other ones. There are some that have very like reddish colored eyes compared to the others and stuff like that. So you start to rely on that. Another cool thing is they all have their own unique speckle pattern on their belly. That's kind of like the penguin version of a fingerprint. And it stays the same year after year even when they shed their feathers. So you can tell them apart without using the bands if you really sit there and study them.
Which you have. I'm guessing all the time. Who is the prettiest penguin answer right now? Go. You know, I know.
Oh, that's really hard. I think Kate is very pretty. I think she has a really pretty penguin face. I wonder who's your who's
Kate the prettiest penguin
Realy? I thought it was um,
Paddles is the cutest thing. Oh,
they are different, Paddles is very cute. But Kate is pretty.
That's pretty interesting to think that we can tell them apart by sort of their facial features if you get familiar enough. And I imagine it's like having 100 of the same dog species or dog breed right. You can tell them apart because it makes sense to you. That one's slightly browner than the
one where I'm like, Well, her beak is slightly smaller and her head looks tiny. And her body or some of them have like stubby legs.
Well, sometimes we don't have those bead bands on right because they are very seasonal animals. And you mentioned molting and during that molt we take off their bead bands. Why is that?
Yes, molting is playing on expert mode when it comes to telling them very difficult. But when they molt, it's a very dramatic process. So they actually lose most of their feathers all at the same time within the span of about two weeks. So it's called a catastrophic molt. And it looks very catastrophic when it's happening because they are just sloughing feathers, it looks like a penguin pillow fight out there. All the time, we've got a bunch of featherless penguins walking around. It's very ridiculous. But before that goes on, they tend to bulk up and build up a lot of body fat. So that bracelet could get a little bit too tight if we leave it on there. So we will take it off just to make that process a little bit more comfortable. Because it doesn't look like a comfortable process already. So between the bulking and the shedding feathers, we just want to take that bracelet off and give them time to go ahead and shed and get that process over with.
It's a rough season for them.
It looks pretty miserable.
We have to put a sign out every single year to kind of explaining why they look like that and
like because it's normal. Right? Everybody thinks they're sick because they're just sitting there with no feathers like looking miserable.
The name catastrophic molt definitely it's it is a catastrophe. It's natural and happens to them every single year. That's natural.
I love that penguins have normal plumage that's in their winter and migration and then breeding plumage, which is just a very slight change to their face. You haven't noticed?
It is pretty cool. So when they first molt, they actually will keep little tiny feathers on their face, and they start to lose Lose them in the breeding season. So their face goes bear and it kind of coincides with breeding season and summer because that's one of the ways they lose heat is by air coming across some beer patches on their face. So it freshens up, they look a little bit more fresh and have their makeup on. You'll start to see that change. Yeah,
I've heard that they are prone to specific penguin fleas and ticks that can cause anemia. And so having a little like rosy blush means that you probably don't have as many parasites as and so you're a healthier mate option. Wow,
that's so
fewer ticks.
You're the one for me,
is a cute little blush that they get though. That's adorable, breeding plumage, just less feathers. Slightly less.
The opposite is almost like they had like their eyelashes done and like,
it will save that for the puffins to do that one.
Oh, boy. We're gonna talk about puffin plumage
puffins next season for sure, we
definitely will. Well, something that the guests who might come to the aquarium might see with our penguin habitat is that we've recently remodeled and if you haven't been here since last year, and our penguins were for a little bit behind the scenes due to avian influenza, but they are now back on the habitat with a newly remodeled habitat. So what did we do? What do we change,
we changed a couple of things out there. But the really big one is we added a lot of river rock substrate,
it looks amazing. I think
it looks really nice out there. It's been fun. Watching the penguins get used to it because it does wobble and move a little bit more. So they're kind of figuring that out. And that's new, but it is also very good for them. So the whole reason we switched that substrate was to help with foot health, by having their feet be in different positions, those rocks move. So it's never that they're going to be sitting in the same spot with their feet in exactly the same position because you can start to have sores develop as that happens. It's also good for building muscle and stuff like that, too, and keeping them a little bit more healthy and mobile as they age.
It looks amazing.
I think so too, it's very, very fun out there,
it's a little bit more naturalistic looking those ages
that kind of mimic their natural habitat is
a little bit I think it would be smaller rocks, and maybe a little bit more dirt not so much that rock stacked on top of rock, but it is really good for them. It also helps with drainage. So we're not having water just sit there and they're standing in puddles, it kind of keeps them elevated a little bit more, which is helpful for them.
So it's it's just overall a really good welfare change in addition to being good aesthetics for the habitat. Yeah, I
think so too.
I like seeing changes that benefit the animals. You know, like, I like that we think that way, and we're like, Hey, how can we help the penguins while they're off habitat, just fix the whole habitat to be more rocks.
That is only the changes that you can see, we are also working behind the scenes trying to update some things as well. We're looking at how we could revamp our nesting box setup and stuff like that, too. It's exciting, I think so it's kind of a cool time to be here.
Well, kind of blending right into nesting and some of the behaviors that are penguins are showing. One of our social media questions for you today is that we've heard that there are quite a few shenanigans that happen up in habitat. So what are your favorite stories and sort of what's the tea what's going on up there?
There are definitely penguin shenanigans. All the tea. We very frequently sit in our like staff office and we give everybody the lowdown on all the stuff that's happening. It's never a dull moment. Is it so I jokingly call it the young and the nestless soap opera out there. So to update you on some of the happenings just this season, this is just a season, like a year after
season like 12 of the young and the nestless
This season. We had a penguin leave her mate for the neighbor. Yeah, so this season, we had a bird named Heidi and Anderson and they were together. And then Heidi left Anderson for the neighbor Wally while he was previously a single young man. So now Wally and Heidi are together and they still live next door. Oh, it's rough but Anderson was not left alone. So we had quite the shakeup. So we had another pair that was Patsy and Gatz and Gatz was a little bit more interested in people and doing his own thing. And he was late to the game building a nest He was not interested. So Patsy left him. It was rough. He didn't come bothered but poor Patsy was looking around for any guy and she went and kind of inserted herself with Anderson. Okay,
she was so you have a nest.
You have a nest, I know what you're doing. So she would crawl into the nest and at first he was kind of mean to her he would peck at her Oh, and stuff like that. Yeah. And she was just kind of like, Okay, well I'm gonna be here and I think this is kind of sad sounding. I think they settled for each other and they're still together I think a lot nicer to her now. That's it was not love at first sight on the sled. And then Gatz was left to be our single male on habitat this year because we do not have equal males and females there's one more male and it is Gatz
just gets so long. Do you want to know the twist ending is that Anderson Wally and Gatz are all brothers actually, right
It really is a
soap opera. Yeah.
Wow. Wow.
That's amazing. That's amazing. That's the tea that is a lot and that's just this season that
is just this season that it's stuff like that happens I've noticed each other from now sometimes they might want their neighbors nest sometimes the they leave each other it is always drama.
I don't know if we mentioned it yet. How many penguins do we have?
We have 19 Penguins out there.
So we got one single male, one single male, and it's been Gatz this season. Last year. It was Wally, as you mentioned, so with Gatz this year, what's he been up to without a girlfriend,
he is now single and very ready to mingle. He's not only very late to the game, so he worked very diligently collecting a lot of nesting materials. So we give them palm fronds here that we cut off of palm trees and we sanitize them many, many many times and then give them to the penguins and guests would come and just gather mouthfuls of them and carry them in and then one day I actually looked at his nest box and there was no palm fronds and
sabotage was out for a swim his neighbor stole his wife thankfully it was it
would be too much too much betrayal
he lost his wife and he got robbed
that's a home invasion very dramatic. So if they were to penguins together ones typically guarding the nest and the other one is sort of they kind
of take shifts so they both do take turns like taking care of him sitting on the egg and taking care of the chicks usually got one will be on nest duty and the other will go look for food and take their swim time. Some of them are better mates than others some of them yeah Anderson I wasn't gonna name names
Couples therapy for sure poor Patsy
might know she got like two breaks
this whole nesting season was go Patsy
Anderson you do all the egg work
I've just got a guard takes that guarding job very serious funny
to think that they each can be problematic in their own ways. And that different penguins are problematic year to year, when you said that gas was a little bit more interested in people. Do you mean that he's friendly with people? Or is it something different?
It is a little bit of both. So sometimes it's friendly. But sometimes he gets a little bit too excited and he thinks people are his mates. And that is not something that we want to encourage. So usually that's okay, we're done interacting right now. Because we do want guests to know he's a penguin and to eventually find a penguin love.
But not Patsy. Patsy betrayed him who stole his stuff.
I think Mattson didn't know. Yeah. Mattson had a lot of palm fronds. Many, many all
of a sudden, yeah, no, these
are mine. Yeah, worked really hard to get
me and my wife Lily did this. No idea what you're talking about. That's hilarious. So when the males typically are gathering the nesting material, or is it sort of equal?
Tends to be the males. Yeah, the males will go out and gather a lot of palm fronds. It's really funny. We usually keep the palm fronds on a white bucket. And all we have to do is carry a white. I could have anything. I was getting one to clean rocks for a little bit. I was putting him in the white bucket, and they would all come up and go palm fronds. They all just stare at me like give us palm fronds. This is the white bucket like bucket. My girlfriend
really wants some more palm fronds. Just give me the frods. So when they are gathering Do they ever gathered like other pieces of furniture to put in? Or is it typically just the fronds and sticks and things like that?
It's funny you say that just this morning, I found a white towel. Left somewhere a penguin could grab it. And it was in somebody's nest box.
So fun. No,
they absolutely will gather other things. So I've seen them grab brushes when I'm out trying to carry those into their burrow as well. Erin has a really good story about something that was taken from her.
I used to have my ID badge that was right on my keychain. And it was a day that I was out in penguins. And I don't know if I was cleaning or I was you know doing an encounter or what but I just remember Fisher coming up seeing my keys and my ID badge and just deciding that my ID badge would be a really wonderful addition to his nest and he fully pulled it off my keychain and just brought so at one point, Fisher said I'm Erin Lundy so
He wanted a picture of you
Identiy theft is not a joke Fisher
they have gone for my camera strap before like the my actual camera strap or even just like you know, sometimes I'm wearing a jacket or something that has you know, something's taken off
my keys all the time. shoe laces I've had them on time I shoot for
like really this would look good. There's my I think this is it. This
is what I think Fisher wanted a picture of you in his home
it and it's no it was covered. It definitely had poop on it when I got so I don't think it was a nice thing.
Oh no, maybe it was
just he's one of my favorite penguins. But after that, I don't know Are we? Are we friends? Or is this some sort of weird evil thing that you're doing Fisher? That is too funny? Well, we do have some other questions from social media.
This is a very fun episode. Yeah, these penguins shenanigans, there's always so much that we could talk about.
And the young and the nestless is my new favorite soap opera that I will definitely tune into. If you do want to see the young and the nestless, you can come see our penguins at our Magellanic penguin habitat. It's on the second floor outside, it's on the third floor outside. And you can usually see most of our penguins out interacting, you can tell them all apart by their bead bands, we have three floors,
that like half floor, that's true,
I think we should say second, though,
is on the top floor outside. Our penguin habitat is on the top floor outside. And if you want to identify all of the major actors and actresses and the young and the nestless, we do have a cute little sign that actually has everyone's bead colors. And you can tell who's who and who is
causing what drama, reality TV show of all time, it's pretty great.
Sometimes I just sit and watch and it's a lot. But anyway, some of our other social media questions are how many species of penguins are there and what are the biggest and smallest species?
That is for how many species that's actually kind of a debated topic among the penguin scientists of the world. So there's not always agreement in science on how to classify those but I go by 18 So I say there's 18 Different penguin species 17 Well that's just some people group certain wants together and like subspecies and stuff like that. So I say that there are 18 species, and the smallest is going to be the little blue Penguin or the fairy penguin.
It's a cute name right?
And then the largest is the emperor penguin.
That's also a cute name for them.
How large are the emperor penguins?
I think they're like three feet now even larger than that maybe like three to four range
and how big are our penguins?
Probably about like two feet and a half
they're big but not that some are bigger than others. Looking at you gets again
I need to take up a little measuring are we gonna have on the door like little hi oh,
we need to make that absolutely. Well I think it's funny because I believe the tallest penguin and the shortest penguin are a pair. Is that right? Not shim depends
on the neckline.
It does. I think Patsy and whatever are pretty equally matched. I think Patsy might be tinier.
I think whatever just
to she looks like a little goblin. Yes.
Just like I'm 23
but Shim was definitely one of our larger ones. He's very tall. He is tall. Yeah, and Robbie's another one of our really big boys Rob He's so handsome. He is He and Kate are a pair. So the our two most like beautiful or just model penguins are a pair.
They are really cute together.
They're beautiful. So that couple
that couple
everyone wants to be Robbie and Kate came to rescue penguins from Brazil. They found each other here at the creme de la. Wow, Hollywood here they can model penguins. They should be on TV. They're pretty great. really
should. That's what we're gathering here is that the TV show? Honestly, if you're listening,
and you produce and make a TV show, reach out. And if you need help telling them part Ashley's really good at that. So we also have a question wondering, are penguins friendly? Or feisty?
I think it depends on the penguin. So a little bit of both are like cats. So they'll turn around be like, Okay, that's enough. So the answer is it kind of depends. We do have some that are very affectionate towards people that are very used to being handled. And then we have some that do not like to be handled and prefer a more hands off approach.
It's good to know who is the most mischievous penguin.
I think it's a toss up. So the two that I feel like I have getting into shenanigans the most are going to be Gatz and Wally. And I think they're mischievious in the way that like it feels like having a bunch of like toddlers running around. Sometimes when you leave something out, they're gonna come over and they're gonna touch it in order to pick it up. Put a mat down on the floor, they're gonna tear it up. And I'm like, Can you just stop touching? Five seconds? Just leave it alone.
Goodness. It is like having a bunch of children around, isn't it?
Chaos sometimes? Thank you this kind. It is cute.
And they're not extremely mobile. We talked a little bit earlier about doing an animal escape drill. If a penguin were to somehow escape, how would you recapture it?
I think we would just try to corral it a little bit and then scoop amount up and put them back. You can
carry them. They're usually pretty amenable to being handled at least most of them.
Most of them are pretty used to be picked up and carried. Just scoop them on up and carry them back.
Welcome home.
That's awesome. Nice try.
They're not fast on land. And that kind of leads us to our next question.
Yeah, I think a very interesting question that we get asked a lot is do they have knees?
We get asked that a lot.
We do actually get asked
that more times than you would expect in my time as a penguin keeper. And the answer is yes, penguins do have knees. If you look at an x ray. It's kind of weird. It almost looks like They're sitting like squatting because their knees are up in their little body. So look up a penguin X ray. It's pretty crazy. But knees confirmed knees.
It makes me wonder how accurate our dinosaur depictions are sometimes. And you look at a penguin that looks like a very long neck bird squatting, you're like, Oh, cool.
Oh, my goodness, if you look at their necks, like the skeleton of their neck to it is way longer than you expect. And they could really stretch that neck out. It's funny, too. It's pretty drastic. They're hiding all sorts of little secrets.
Those little secrets. How long does it take for we said, we've had some chicks here. How long does it take for that baby penguin to grow fully into an adult?
So from when they hatch, usually, around 90 days, it's kind of what I say. So that is going up getting past the fluffy phase, losing that baby down and learning to swim. It's about a 90 day process.
How long does it take for a penguin egg to hatch once it's been laid? To?
Yes, if it's gonna hatch, usually, it's in like the 38 to 42 day range is when we'll see it hatch pretty quick.
That is actually really fast. A penguin for today's parents,
is that pretty quick for bird species or some
birds hatched? Like fairly quickly? I think some of the smaller guys hatch even faster than that, like maybe two weeks. Yeah. And I Oh, I would have to look it up. I feel like there was somebody I read recently. What did like the really big birds,
that long hatch? Right? That took a long time, but I would have to look it up. And they always like to eggs, right?
They do they lay too, but they don't lay them like one and then another it's they lay an egg and then four days later they lay there second day, do they ever both hatch. Sometimes they do generally, only one tends to hatch or one tends to make it if they both hatch, depending on food supplies, it would have to be I think, very experienced parents and a lot of resources and plentiful fish out there for them both to make it.
What happens if we are in a breeding season here at the Aquarium where we are having penguin check chicks and bird lays two eggs. And they're both viable.
So sometimes in that instance, if we have another pair that maybe wasn't successful, we can do foster eggs. So we might be able to take one of the extra eggs and give it to another pair. A lot of times we only like the pair sitting on one at a time because it lets them focus all of their effort on just that one chick and it increases the chance of success. And it's a little less stressful for the parents.
To twins.
All the parents out there not.
Twins are a lot. That's awesome.
Yeah. So sometimes we could pull the second egg and we just let them focus on the first one. And we could give the second egg to somebody else or we just don't give it to anybody.
And if we have young penguins that have grown up in our swimming, they're silver in color, right? When they first get that they don't, when they're hatched, they have the funny brown feathers that sort of look like they have curly hair, and they're very cute. And then they start getting sort of weird looking as that falls out. But then they turn totally silver. And that's not what we typically expect with a penguin. When do they get sort of that very tuxedos? Yeah, the tuxedos usually about
a year and a half old. So they'll have their first molt about a year and a half, and they get their black and white tuxedos. And it's kind of a fun process. I had a penguin chick where both the parents had what I call the bow tie mark so they actually had a spot on their neck that looked like a little bow tie. And we were sitting there anxiously watching. I'm gonna have the bow tie we have we're like trying to peek under the feathers that they're like she did have a bow tie.
I wonder genetics that's
for the African. So actually, this is a fun African penguin Magellanic crossover. So Magellanic penguins have their double bandits they have two black bands kind of across their chest and neck. African penguins have one and the bow tie is the remnant of that second band. Oh, yeah. Crazy,
is crazy. I love that.
Now we know bowtie genetics is a real thing from the Magellanic. So
they invented the bowtie.
Another listener wants to know What do penguins feel like?
Oh, it's so hard to describe. They're incredibly soft. Yeah, but also like kind of smooth and slick at the same time. So those outer feathers are really soft and fluffy but also slick because they conditioned them with like a waterproofing oil that they make, which is crazy to it's, you just have to come see for yourself.
Unlike anything else, right?
Yeah, it's so hard
feeling to describe that helpful. Well, where do they get their waterproofing from? Does it just secrete all over their body,
they have a little gland kind of right on top of the base of their tail called the Preen gland premium and a lot of birds have it. So a lot of times you'll see birds when they groom themselves, they reach their head back towards their tail and they'll kind of rub their face on their tail and it looks really weird, but getting that oil kind of on their beak on their face, and then they rub their face all over the rest of their feathers and kind of condition them and spread that waterproofing oil all over. That's crazy. It also looks like you don't have to do that. Right?
What do you mean? Yes, don't do that.
Yeah. Hmm, How flexible are you? That's crazy. I have
a waterproof.
I think my favorite thing about it is that when they molt, you can see it
feels forbidden
to see that, so it is separate from their cloaca.
Yeah, yeah, it is. So the cloca is like underneath the tail and a little premium is actually on the top side. For our
listeners who want to help penguins in the wild. Do you have any suggestions on things that they can do in their day to day lives to help penguins?
I think one of the best things that we can do for penguins is just to try to buy local and sustainably sourced seafood. Overfishing is one of the biggest problems that they are facing out there in the ocean because they are competing against the commercial fishing industry. And some places are really good about regulating that industry. And then some places have a little bit of a harder time regulating it. And it's really been a challenge for penguin. So just trying to not be a part of the problem and try to support people who are doing the right thing and having sustainable industries. It's really helpful. Yeah, definitely
we'll link some resources in the show notes to for sustainable seafood.
We just want those penguin twins to survive. More food, the more twins live. That's all we really want. All right to last but not least, we have one more question for you.
Do you have a favorite penguin? Maybe this season,
right this season? I think that's the hardest question.
My main character is the main
character. Hmm. I think I really like Robbie, he's still in my heart. He's such a sweet, like well mannered little gentleman.
So good choice. He's
very polite. He comes up and he waits for you to give him food and he take what's he like what he wants and he'll walk away some of the other penguins sit there and they'll pick at you if you're not fast enough, or they just eat and eat and steal fish from one another. And Robbie's very polite and he's just a very cute good boy.
That's a good reason to make Robbie the cover photo for the podcast.
born to be on the cover.
He was he's very handsome. Well, thank you Ashley. That was probably one of the more fun very fun.
We learned a lot
about penguins shenanigans here at the Aquarium and if you guys want to come and see the shenanigans in person, please do they are at our June Keyes Magellanic penguin habitat. You might see Ashley out there being pecked at or being very politely treated by Robbie when she's eating which would be depends on the penguin on the day. And if you come in the late summer, please do not be alarmed when you see feathers everywhere and pink pluck chickens. That is normal that is normal. Well thank you can actually we really appreciate having you on.
Aquarium of the Podcific is brought to you by Aquarium of the Podcific a 501 C three nonprofit organization in 2023. The aquarium celebrates 25 years of connecting millions of people worldwide to the beauty and wonder of our ocean planet. Head to aquarium of pacific.org to learn more about our 25th anniversary celebration. Keep up with the aquarium on social media @aquariumpacific on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
This podcast is produced by Erin Lundy, Madeline Walden and Scott Shaw. Our music is by Andrew Reitsma and our podcast art is by Brandi Kenney, special thanks to Cecile Fisher and Anita Valles and our audio visual and education departments and to all of our amazing podcast guests for taking time out of their day to talk about the important work that they do. Pod cific wouldn't be possible without the support of the aquarium donors, members, guests and supporters. Thanks for listening!
