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The Return of the "Bird Children" |
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By Sandra Guijarro*
From October to March, the Magellan penguins return to land after months at sea, arriving in southern Chile to mate, creating a stirring spectacle for the humans fortunate enough to observe them.
OTWAY BAY, Chile - Every year, the Magellan penguins return to land to mate, living in large groups along the beach, a spectacle that looks like a giant convention of sun-bathers in Otway Bay, 70 km northwest of Punta Arenas, Chile's southernmost city.
Dubbed the "bird children" by the local human residents, the penguins are small, measuring up to 70 cm tall, and have a white chest and black back like most penguin species. Watching them waddle along the beach or slip into the sea tends to produce a sense of peace and wonder among human observers.
This explains why some 35,000 people visit the site each year at this time. The Magellan penguins (Sphenicus Magellanicus), one of nine penguin species found in Chile, arrive each October to mate on the small islands of Patagonia in Tierra del Fuego and on the beaches of Otway Bay.
The climate of this region in the extreme south of Chile, some 2,000 km from Santiago, is cold and cloudy, with winds blowing from Antarctica that can reach speeds of 120 km per hour.
The Magellan penguins can live up to 20 years. They usually maintain the same mate throughout their lifetime, returning here to the same nests they occupied the previous year. A penguin pair usually has two offspring per year, though three is not unheard of. Usually only the strongest survives.
These flightless birds can dive to depths of 120 meters and swim as fast as 40 km per hour through these frigid waters, where they feed on krill and plankton.
For many years, small-scale fishing operations would use penguin as bait to catch 'centolla' (spider crab) for its highly prized meat. The penguins were also caught to be stuffed and sold as curiosities, or were captured live for public and private zoos.
For the last decade, the Otway Foundation has been in charge of the bay's environmental management. "When we began the task of protecting the area, there were just 400 penguins left. The colony was on the verge of disappearing," Kai Horst, who holds a doctorate in natural sciences and currently heads the foundation, told Tierramérica.
Today the colony numbers more than 10,000. However, threats remain, such as global climate change, over-fishing and oil spills, which alter their habitat and affect their food sources.
Also in this region is Los Pinguinos national park, located on Magdalena Island, in the heart of the Strait of Magellan.
A ferry from Punta Arenas carries tourists to the site, which is the temporary home each year to a colony of 185,000 Magellan penguins. Visitors can also see the austral seagull, the Dominican gull and the cormorant, as well as other representatives of the area's biodiversity.
The park is protected and managed by the governmental National Forestry Corporation. The tourism season of the Southern Hemisphere summer begins in December.
Once the difficult season of reproduction comes to an end in March, the penguins return to live in the sea until the following October.
* Sandra Guijarro is a journalist and Tierramérica contributor.
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