With full page ads in City Paper and adorable commercials across the local channels it’d be hard to find someone unaware of The Maryland Zoo opening its new African Penguin exhibit, Penguin Coast lastmonth. The exhibit, which mimics the South African Coast, complete with a small island and fishing camp, is one of the first attractions patronssee when they enter the park.
“The Maryland Zoo maintains one of the largest colonies and has the most successful breeding program of African penguins in North America,” zoo President and CEO Don Hutchinson said in aJuly 2014 press release. “We hope the new environment will enable us to continue with our efforts on behalf of these birds.”
That’s because these warm water birds, which live almost exclusively in colonies off the coast of South Africa, are in trouble. Just four years ago they were reclassified and upgraded from ‘vulnerable’ to ‘endangered’ status. The population has been declining due to various environmental factors including oil spills, continual global warming, and the rise of commercial fishing depleting the schools of fish the penguins would normally feast on.In 2011, Global Post reported that the world population of African Penguins dropped from 200,000 in 2000 to merely 55,000 a decade later. If this pattern continues, the penguins could go extinct in just 15 years. That would follow a global pattern outlined in the World Wildlife Federation’s Living Planet Report released in September. It reports a 52 percent drop in all wildlife populations worldwide from 1970 to 2010.
But a conservation group,The Bristol Conservation and Scientific Foundation , based in Bristol, England, is trying to slow the loss of these birds The foundation has been working with South African agencies to move the birds from their homes to another part of the coast, closer to populations of fish. This is a difficult task; the penguins are very instinctual about their nesting area and traditionally return to their original grounds. They are committed to their nests and their partners and stay monogamous their entire lives.
Zoo officials have been breeding the penguins in captivity ever since they were first brought to the zoo in 1967. This means the penguins stay within their captive habitat surrounded by supplemental resources and encouragement from humans. This process is beneficial because it isolates the animal from factors that affect their population’s decrease in the wild. However, it is most effective when paired with reintroduction, where the animal is then released back into wild.
Jane Ballentine, director of public relations for the zoo, clarified in an email the zoo’s plans for the penguins.
“Right now there are no plans to introduce any of the penguins born in the US to the wild. While they are endangered, the issues with the degradation of their habitat are such that it wouldn’t be prudent at this point. The colonies here in the US are safety colonies – the birds are bred according to strict Species Survival Plans in order to promote genetic diversity among penguins”