The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7483 p730
22/29 December 2007

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An expedition into penguin territory

Steven Kayne, editor of the Veterinary Pharmacist newsletter, shares his experience of a trip to the Antarctic Peninsula

Christmas miscellany 2007 index

With a gross tonnage of just 2,398 the vessel looked incredibly small as it lay surrounded by cruise ships in Ushaia harbour at the very tip of South America.

However, heartened by an assurance from the captain that it was the first custom built “expedition ship” designed to withstand the rigours of travel in some of the world’s most inhospitable oceans, the passengers boarded on a cold but sunny February afternoon and a voyage to the Great White Continent began.

(Nine months later our vessel, Explorer [pictured right], was holed following a collision with ice on a subsequent voyage to the Antarctic and sank.)

The ship passed through the Beagle Channel — named after HMS Beagle, which carried Charles Darwin around the world — and then pitched and rolled its way south through Drake’s Passage. The winds finally moderated and the swell, which at times had reached heights of six metres, swung round to the stern quarter, making the motion much easier to bear. Passengers, many of whom had spent 15 hours or more strapped in their bunks, began to emerge on deck.

As the ship neared the South Shetland Islands, we spotted minke whales, fin whales and hourglass dolphins and the bird life became more abundant.

Our first landing was a boulder beach on Penguin Island where Antarctic fur seals and a large colony of chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica) were seen. The latter are so named because the distinctive markings on their heads and necks and there are an estimated 6.5 million breeding pairs.

The noise and smell of guano from the birds were incredible. Like all penguins the chinstraps waddled, jumped and belly-flopped their way around the rocky terrain.

A succession of wet landings followed as the ship sailed along the Antarctic Peninsula and we encountered Adelies (Pygoscelis adeliae), the highly inquisitive Gentoos (Pygoscelis papua) and a lone Emperor (Aptenodytes forsteri), the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species.

The feeding chases and the various stages of moult in the chicks, which were almost ready to head off to sea, made photography a joy. Giant leopard seals — the penguins’ only predator — were seen dismembering and devouring penguin.

There was an intriguing variety of bird life (albatross, skua, petrel and Antarctic shag) and, unexpectedly, mosses and lichens too, but it was the penguins that inspired the greatest fascination.

The word “penguin” is thought by some to derive from the Welsh words pen (head) and gwyn (white) which were applied to the now extinct flightless bird known as the great auk. There are 17 species of penguin and these are usually found near nutrient-rich, cold-water currents that provide an abundant supply of food.

These highly specialised marine birds are adapted to living at sea, some species spending as much as 75 per cent of their time there. Different species thrive in varying climates, ranging from the Galapagos at the equator to the pack ice of Antarctica.

Adult penguins usually disperse from breeding rookeries to feed in coastal waters. Studies have found that some travel long distances between feeding and breeding grounds. Young birds usually disperse when they leave their colonies and may wander thousands of kilometres but they generally return to the colonies in which they hatched to moult and breed.

Only the yellow-eyed penguin (Megadyptes antipodes) is at risk of extinction, with fewer than an estimated 2,000 breeding pairs in southern New Zealand and its sub Antarctic islands. Swedish, Chilean and Australian researchers have demonstrated that some penguins have been infected with intestinal parasites and ticks. This may be due, in part, to carelessly discarded food in areas frequented by humans.