|
| |
Dyer Island Blog #3 - 9 March 2009
Last week I ended off telling you about a Cape Cormorant I had found with fishing line around it's neck. Well, unfortunately
I begin this week with another fishing line story.
This story takes place on Robben Island. I was visiting the island with some colleagues to have a look at another African Penguin research
project. We were looking for penguin nests to see if there were any with chicks. As we walked along the coastline, Richard
spotted a penguin lying just above the waters edge.
It was covered in fishing line, but we didn't realise how badly till we were closer. The bird was so weak, that as Richard
waded into the sea behind it to cut it off, should it try and go to sea to get away, that it hardly moved. Once Richard
picked up the bird, we could see why. It has to be the worst case of fishing line entanglement I have ever seen.
While Richard held the bird, it took me 10min to slowly cut away and dis-entangle the penguin. It had been entangled
like this for some time since it was very thin. The line was wrapped around it's neck multiple times as well as tightly
wrapped around it's right foot. Once all the line had been removed it started to perk up a bit and we gave it a liquid dose
to prevent further dehydration. (see pictures down the side).
This photo  gives you an idea just how much fishing
line came off this bird. Richard took the penguin to the South African Foundation for the
Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) when he left the island. Without treatment from the vets and staff at SANCCOB, the
penguin would definitely die, and I'll keep you up to date on his progress.
Have a look at their website to read more about the great work that they do www.sanccob.
co.za. I guess it goes without saying how much we really need to watch first our own lifestyle, and then encourage the
lifestyle and activities of friends and people we know to change to ensure things like this don't happen. I think we'd all
be quite depressed if we really knew the extent of the impact that pollution/litter has on marine life.
Richard Sherley, my penguin rescue friend, is busy with his Phd on
using natural markings of African Penguins in an artificial recognition project. African Penguins have a unique spot pattern
on their chests and the focus of Richard's project is to "develop, and to demonstrate the effectiveness of, an intelligent,
visual surveillance system that can be integrated into a colony of African Penguins Spheniscus demersus as a non-intrusive means of providing detailed and
reliable data on the species." If you go to http://combine.cs.bris.ac.uk/ and
click on 'Penguin Recognition Project' you can learn more about this remarkable project.
Heading back to Dyer Island now for a quick look at our nests. I did a penguin breeding survey on 28th February of the whole island
together with the Island's manager who I'll introduce in a later update. Sadly, most of the penguins have abandoned, there has just
been too many hot days in succession. We have temperature gauges in some nests that are due to be downloaded in March. I'll let you
know the temperatures the island has experienced these last few weeks when I download the data.
It's not all gloom and doom however and some nests have survived. In our previous blog, two of the nests were abandoned, so
I've added some different nests.
Nest 1 has an adult with 2 little chicks….you can just see the one, the other is hiding behind the parent. These two
chicks are about 4 weeks old
Nest 2: this adult is incubating two eggs
Nest 3: this adult is incubating 1 egg 
Nest 4: this pair is incubating 1 egg 
Nest 5: this pair has 2 eggs 
Tune in next week for an update on the entangled penguin and more island stories ;-)
© 2009 Dyer Island Conservation Trust
|
|
|
Penguin found covered with a fishing line
Line tangles around the penguins neck
Richard with penguin now freed from fishing line
Liquid hydration being given to the penguin
|
|
|
|
