January 20 - Penguin Awareness Day

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January 20, the whole world celebrates an environmental holiday, established in honor of one of the most unusual birds in the world - Penguin Awareness Day. The main goal of this date is to increase people's knowledge of penguins, to direct the attention of mankind to the preservation of the numbers and habitats of these amazing birds.

Penguins - a family of flightless seabirds, representatives of which swim and dive well. The family has 18 modern species of penguins, the largest of which is the emperor penguin - its height can reach 120 cm, and weight - more than 40 kg. While the smallest representative of the species is a small penguin, not higher than the knee of an adult, and its weight does not exceed 2.5 kg.

Penguins live only in the open sea of the Southern Hemisphere: off the coast of Antarctica, New Zealand, southern Australia, South Africa, along the coast of South America from the Falkland Islands to Peru and the Galapagos Islands near the equator. Birds prefer coolness, therefore in tropical latitudes they appear only with cold currents. And the largest cluster of individuals can be found in the Antarctic and on the adjacent islands. Penguins "settle", as a rule, in large colonies numbering tens of thousands of pairs or more. The average life span of birds is 25 years.

A thick layer of fat and feathers with water-repellent properties help keep penguins warm on land and in water. It is a wonderful adaptation to aquatic life that distinguishes them from other bird species - the body of the penguin is ideally folded for swimming and diving, and wings resembling fins and paws with membranes allow birds to reach speeds of up to 10 km / h in water. At the same time, some species of penguins can dive to a depth of 200 meters!

But on land, penguins are not so "fast" and of all modern birds, only they can move "standing", which looks pretty funny. Unusual and the way they travel on loose snow - so as not to fall through when walking, penguins lie on their stomachs and, pushing their wings and paws from the snow, glide rather quickly on it.

Since penguins are waterfowl, they feed on fish and crustaceans, which they hunt, swallowing their prey directly under water. During molting and during hatching, chicks are forced to refuse food or simply do not have the ability to get it. But when hatching offspring, females and males succeed each other, which helps them not to starve. As a rule, both parents participate alternately in hatching eggs and feeding chicks.

Since penguins mainly nest in isolated territories, adults on land have practically no natural enemies, unlike sea open spaces where sea leopards, seals, lions, killer whales and sharks prey on penguins. But chicks, left unattended by their parents on the shore, often become easy prey for birds of prey, and some species of gulls steal penguin eggs.

Penguins are charming and very friendly creatures. They walk funny, elegant and fast in the water. For most people, they cause sympathy and a smile. But their number is gradually decreasing every year, including due to activities and the fault of man. So, among 18 species of penguins by the beginning of the XXI century, three species were recognized as being on the verge of extinction, and seven species are already threatened with extinction!

In the XX century, whole colonies of penguins were actively destroyed: people collected eggs for food and killed adults to melt subcutaneous fat and extract oil from it. And today, among the main dangers is habitat loss, as is the case with magnificent penguins, the number of which is under threat due to the expansion of land use and human invasion of the New Zealand dune system. Wild mammals are also dangerous, for example, colonies of Galapagos penguins located on two islands were destroyed by feral dogs. Climate change, increased interest in the use of Antarctic marine bioresources, and oil product pollution caused by tanker routes running there are dangerous for penguins ... All this leads to negative consequences for amazing birds and other inhabitants of the region’s fragile ecosystem.

Therefore, today's holiday is an occasion to learn more about these wonderful birds and their habitat. It is important to think about what each of us can do to preserve the world and nature around us. For example, there is an unusual project Penguin Watch, in which all interested lovers of science and nature can take part. In particular, scientists can be helped to process large amounts of data that cannot yet be delegated to computer algorithms. For example, you can help scientists keep track of penguin populations by counting them in photographs taken in their habitats. After all, it is not yet possible to adapt the computer algorithm for this - black and white penguins merge with the terrain, and the computer often makes mistakes, but a person can calculate them without much difficulty - there would be a desire. The calculation results are processed by specialists, and scientists draw conclusions about how many birds visit certain territories. So over the course of the project, 40 thousand people have voluntarily counted penguins in 4.5 million pictures! What significantly facilitated the work of scientists.

By the way, if you remember, there is another holiday dedicated to these flightless birds - World Penguin Day, which is celebrated annually on April 25th .

This is an automatic translation.
Click here to read the publication in the original language.