The Great Penguin Rescue by Dyan DeNapoli

Author:Dyan DeNapoli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2010-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

13

Peter, Pamela, and Percy’s Long Swim Home—The World Anxiously Watches

It’s the biggest dilemma I’ve had to face in my life. If we hadn’t fenced in the island, the birds would have gone to sea and they would have got into the oil. It doesn’t matter that the oil isn’t on the beach; it’s the oil in the feeding grounds that counts.

—DR. TONY WILLIAMS, CNC

During our first day at Salt River, the place had been abuzz with news of a disturbing new development out at sea. It seemed the shifting winds and ocean currents had pushed the drifting oil slick onto the shores of Dassen Island the previous afternoon. Like their counterparts that had already been rescued from Robben Island, the 55,000 penguins that lived on Dassen Island now faced the very real threat of getting oiled as well. About half of the penguins were nesting on the southern end of the island, and the oil had polluted the beach adjacent to their breeding grounds. The rest of the penguins were located on the other end of the island, where it was hoped they would be at lower risk of coming into contact with the drifting oil. A low wall, which had been built around the perimeter of the island near the turn of the century to aid in egg collection, had been repaired, and about 10,000 of the penguins had already been moved to the inside of this wall to prevent them from entering the ocean and getting oiled.

In addition, four miles of fencing had been used to cordon off three main nesting sites located outside this wall to keep the penguins on shore; but a week had passed since they had been fenced in and rescuers were concerned that they would soon start starving to death. Unfortunately, there was neither the staff nor the food available to force-feed the penguins trapped on the island. But if they released the birds to let them eat, they would undoubtedly get oiled as soon as they entered the water. By the time this impending crisis revealed itself, SANCCOB and the Salt River warehouse were filled to bursting with oiled penguins, and the volunteers who had come to help were already stretched beyond their physical and emotional limits. It seemed that the penguins on Dassen Island were either going to die from starvation or they were going to perish because there would be no way to rescue and rehabilitate them once they got oiled.

Faced with this new predicament, penguin researchers, wildlife rescuers, and conservation officials gathered for an emergency meeting to discuss their options. It quickly became clear that there were no straightforward answers or ideal solutions. Because of the variable weather conditions and shifting ocean currents, they had no way of predicting exactly how long it might be before the oil slick moved away from the island. Normally, strong winter winds and choppy waves would start to break up and disperse the oil, but the weather that week had been unseasonably calm, and the oil slick was persisting longer than usual.

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