Penguin Madness!: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal

January 16, 2003

Penguin Madness!

With the addition of six penguins from Ohio, the San Francisco Zoo's penguin flock has gone insane:

Zoo penguins intent on futile 'migration' / S.F. flock swims round and round in pool: Brainwashed by six newcomers from Ohio, 46 penguins at the San Francisco Zoo have abandoned their burrows and embarked on a great migration --
except their pool is not exactly the coast of South America and there's really nowhere for them to go.
"We've lost complete control," said Jane Tollini, their mystified keeper. "It's a free-for-all in here. After 18 years of doing this job, these birds are making mincemeat of me."
They've all been swimming since Christmas Eve, whirling around the pool like tuxedos in a washing machine. No one knows why they started or when they'll stop. All they know is that the zoo's Penguin Island has turned into a very chaotic place.
"Round and round they go," Tollini said. "They almost make me dizzy."
In early 2000, Sea World in Aurora, Ohio, was sold, and its Magellanic penguins, accustomed to swimming all winter, were shipped to Sea World in San Diego. Half a dozen of them moved to San Francisco in November, and they met their new colleagues 3 1/2 weeks ago.
Since then, nothing has been the same.
Within two hours, the three males and three females from Ohio -- smaller and more docile than their mean and hefty San Francisco counterparts -- had convinced the 46 to jump in the pool with them. Now they swim most of the day and stagger out only at dusk.
"This is so bizarre, I don't know how to even explain it," said Tollini on a recent morning, gazing at their empty homes. "Normally every burrow would be occupied by pairs. This is their down time. Before, it took a grenade to get them out."
Of the 160 Magellanic penguins in 11 U.S. zoos and aquariums, the San Francisco group is the largest and the best at breeding -- 148 babies since the first penguins showed up in spring 1984.
Even though they all look alike, at least to a casual observer, Tollini has given each penguin a name, can tell them apart and knows who their mates are. Couples include Pearl and Bluto, Grumpy and Shamu, and Captain and Ditz. Tollini will tell you that Bette Davis is a "real housewife" who likes to stay home and that Joan Collins "has done the whole colony" at one time or another.
What she can't tell you is why her birds won't get out of the water -- especially the "geezers" and "old ladies" she suspects are getting pretty tired by now.
One is a humpback, some have bone spurs, and nine of the original penguins, back in the early '80s, made a real migration along the coast of South America -- putting in six months and 2,000 miles.
"Now they're thinking, 'Didn't we just see that palm tree?' " Tollini said. "Some of them haven't swum this much in five years."
CODDLED FLOCK

The San Francisco penguins have always been a coddled bunch. Tollini hand- feeds them, catering to their preferences. Some like to grab the smelt or herring, others want it shoved down their gullets, and yet others opt for room service in their burrows.
Hand-feeding allows the zoo staff to monitor their health twice a day, to protect them from sea gulls and to medicate them when needed.
"It's natural for this colony to do what comes unnaturally," Tollini said.
The penguins normally retreat to their burrows on Nov. 1. They groom, preen,
decorate their homes with palm fronds and pampas grass, and steal each other's nesting material.
In mid-February, they emerge. The first eggs appear in early April and they hatch around 40 days later.
Now, of course, all bets are off. No one knows when this mysterious migration will stop.
Meanwhile, Tollini said, "It is hell feeding them."
The San Francisco penguins are inept at aquatic dining, and their Ohio brethren never had to deal with sea gulls jumping on their heads.
Some penguins are thinner, Tollini said, since they "eat less than they would if they were sitting on their asses." It's harder to give them medicine. When they're on Penguin Island, they're nervous wrecks. And when their pool is drained on Thursdays, she said, they're all bug-eyed and they bump into each other like pinballs.
"I can't figure out how the Aurora penguins communicated and changed the minds of the other 46," said Tollini, who doesn't want to simply remove the gang of six. "I don't experiment on my birds."
Other penguin experts don't know what to make of the swimming frenzy.
"Penguins are extraordinarily social birds," said Christina Slager, associate curator at Monterey Bay Aquarium, who studied Magellanics in the wild in Patagonia and Chile. "And they're very, very inquisitive. If you combine those facts and put in a new stimulus, like the six new penguins, they have to check it out."
Ian Hiler, director of touring exhibits at Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, was surprised that newcomers would make such a splash, so to speak.
"Usually there are one or two dominant birds," Hiler said. "Somehow these animals came up and showed they're worthy of being followed."
He recalled the time his aquarium's 22 penguins were moved to a holding area.
'A LEMMING MENTALITY'

"The animals hit the water and never came out for four weeks," he said. "Swam swam swam swam swam. Changes sometimes change behavior accordingly. It's a lemming mentality."
Aquatic biologist Pam Schaller, who works at Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco, said animals learn from each other, even in captivity.
"Genetically, they're designed to swim," Schaller said. "I'd be more amazed if the six had learned to do something not in penguin nature and showed the other 46 how to do it -- like if the birds were trained to jump through a hoop. "
Ken Ramirez, director of training and husbandry at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, mused that a natural instinct had been activated.
"Something kicks in and animals get in a pattern," he said. "Penguins are flock birds. They do things as a group."
Whatever is causing it, Tollini just hopes it stops -- and soon.
She watched as a few birds stumbled onto Penguin Island for a brief cameo appearance.
"Come on, stay there," she shouted. "Call your wives and husbands home."
Two minutes later, they were back in the pool.

Posted by DeLong at January 16, 2003 08:41 PM | Trackback

Interesting in light of Conradt and Roper's work on animal democracy.

Could be democracy (in a tipping point sense), could be despotism, could be leadership, could be something more complex or sillier still.

Posted by: RonK, Seattle on January 16, 2003 09:55 PM

Reminds me of a line from Michel Feilner, an Arnarcho-Communist singer from Liege (also my cousin - don't choose your family!):

"A long time ago, I believe humankind had a choice between two models of society: an ant colony or a penguin flock. Jean-Philippe, you guess which one we have chosen..."

At least the SF penguins seem to be having the time of their life. Hey, they just found six new friends who are a whole lot of fun, and who probably told them: "What's this baby productivity BS you guys seem to be obsessed with? Take it easy, birdie!"

Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on January 16, 2003 10:47 PM

Alternate theory: maybe the extra six penguins created a critical mass such that the swimming flock now completely circles the central penguin island.

Each penguin can now see the tail of another penguin ahead of him, and they're all swimming their little penguin tails off just trying to keep up.

Posted by: RonK, Seattle on January 16, 2003 11:29 PM

January 14, 2003

Contrary to Orwell, Democracy Rules on the Big Animal Farm
By JAMES GORMAN - NYTimes

When red deer stand up and honeybees dance, they are not simply stretching their legs or indicating where the nectar is, according to a new study. As bizarre as it may seem, they are voting on whether to move to greener pastures or richer flowers.

The process is unconscious, the researchers say. No deer counts votes or checks ballots; bees do not know the difference between a dimple and a chad. But no one deer or bee or buffalo decides when the group moves. If democracy means that actions are taken based not on a ruler's preference, but the preferences of a majority, then animals have democracy.

Not surprisingly, decisions based on majority preferences tend to fit in with what most individuals in the group want. But, the researchers say, this is not a mere tautology. An analysis based on some hefty mathematical models that they developed shows that democracy in groups of animals can have a tangible survival edge over despotism.

Dr. Tim Roper, of the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, who did the research with Dr. Larissa Conradt and reported it in the current issue of Nature, said that despite the wording of the paper, "We're very anxious to avoid any extrapolation to the political domain."

The voting habits of baboons and gorillas and buffalo are not meant to be comparable to ward politics, attack ads on television or negative campaigning that ignores the issues.

The parallel to human activity is on a different scale. "There are human cases of decision making to which our model would be relevant," Dr. Roper said, like "small groups making rather simple decisions."

Loving animals....

Posted by: Anne on January 17, 2003 12:00 PM

January 17, 2003

Atlantic Sharks Found in Rapid Decline
By ANDREW C. REVKIN - NYTimes

Shark populations in the northwest Atlantic Ocean have plunged by more than half since scientists began keeping careful track in 1986, with marquee species like the hammerhead and the great white falling more than 75 percent, researchers are reporting.

Such an abrupt decline in the ocean's dominant hunters could substantially alter marine food chains in ways that are impossible to predict and might take decades to reverse, the researchers and other experts said.

The researchers, from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, ascribed the drop to intensifying commercial and recreational fishing for sharks, which reproduce slowly compared with other oceanic fish. They described their findings today in the journal Science.

The Dalhousie researchers, led by Julia K. Baum, a doctoral candidate at the university, said similar declines had probably occurred elsewhere and that "pervasive overfishing of these species may initiate major ecological changes."

They said there was no evidence that the decline was the result of any natural cycle, partly because similar trends have been recognized in the Pacific and other waters under heavy fishing pressure.

Other biologists had reported declines in shark populations in particular coastal areas, but several experts not involved in the new study said it provided the first detailed overview of an oceanwide decline with broad implications....

Ecology is so dearly important....

Posted by: on January 17, 2003 12:53 PM

Chicks Offer Insight Into Origin of Flight
By JAMES GORMAN - NYTimes

The behavior of chukar partridge chicks, which can run straight up the side of a hay bale or a tree while flapping their wings, may offer a new window on the origin of flight in birds.

Feathered dinosaurs may have done something similar, Dr. Kenneth P. Dial of the University of Montana suggests in today's issue of Science. He suggests that they too flapped their primitive wings to help them climb, which brought them off the ground and closer to discovering the aerial possibilities of their wings. Even incompletely feathered proto-wings, Dr. Dial says, would have been useful in running up inclines.

One of Dr. Dial's findings, which has surprised other scientists who study the evolution of flight, is that the chukar chicks did not use their wings to raise them off the ground. The wing beats served the same purpose as spoilers on race cars. The force generated by flapping pressed the chicks into the surface on which they were running for better traction. As Dr. Dial said of his finding, "It's not intuitive."

In fact, he came upon the behavior accidentally. His teenage son, Terry, was helping him study the development of flight in chukar chicks. While Dr. Dial was traveling, his son was keeping track of the young birds as their feathers grew, and they gradually launched themselves on longer flights, horizontally and vertically.

The vertical flights used hay bales as an obstacle. When Dr. Dial returned from a trip, he said, his son told him the chicks were not staying with the program. "They're cheating," Dr. Dial recalled his son telling him, "They're not flying anymore. They're running up."

Dr. Dial had to see for himself. He then had to videotape the behavior and to do experiments varying the incline and the surface the birds were running up, and clipping the feathers at different lengths.

He found that the chicks were using a flight stroke, but changing the angle to press their feet against the running surface. More feathers meant more effective use of the wings, but partly feathered wings provided a significant benefit.

Loving birds....

Posted by: on January 17, 2003 01:24 PM

Penguins are one of three species (families) of birds which secrete a kind of milk to feed their chicks. The other two are flamingos and pigeons.

A friend of mine who had to draw blood from sick penguins says that they are extremely muscular, extremely irritable, and have razor sharp beaks like snapping turtles. The cartoons of nice, lovable penguins are a big lie promulgated by the liberal media.

Posted by: zizka on January 17, 2003 06:36 PM