Comment Re:Maybe hopeless (YMMV) (Score 1) 190
On behalf of the Little Penguins here with us on Phillip Island (writing from there after another night cleaning up), please *do* clean them up!
It does work. The idea is to simply remove the oil. However this also removes the Penguins natural water proof coating.
But the oil must go or our little ones would ingest the oil/gunk spewed into the ocean from the filthy bilge of the passing ship. Penguins constantly preen themselves to stay waterproof. If they do this when covered in oil, they simply make themselves worse off. Hence we pop the sweaters on them to ensure they can't do this.
Once cleaned of oil, we rehabilitate them and check out their progress in an outdoor above ground pool, just like any pool you might find in a backyard here in Australia. When the penguins are secreting enough of their own oil to preen into their feathers (via the gland under their tail), and they are water proof again, we set them free.
Penguins are wild, and that's how we like them to stay :)
Our problem right now is that it is chick raising season. Penguin parents very much share the role of raising the chick. If dad or mum are killed or taken away, the remaining partner actually frets, staying by the nest and *not* going out to sea to get food for the chick. The chick starves, and eventually the sole parent leaves and swims out.
But with the Hospital right now we are cleaning and getting the Little folk back home as soon as possible, without sparing expense or our own time to ensure it is safe to do so.
The vast majority of released penguins will survive. we just hope we can help enough before their chicks die, or their partners leave.
Thanks everyone for the interest!
reg'ds
kd (Phillip Island Nature Park)
It does work. The idea is to simply remove the oil. However this also removes the Penguins natural water proof coating.
But the oil must go or our little ones would ingest the oil/gunk spewed into the ocean from the filthy bilge of the passing ship. Penguins constantly preen themselves to stay waterproof. If they do this when covered in oil, they simply make themselves worse off. Hence we pop the sweaters on them to ensure they can't do this.
Once cleaned of oil, we rehabilitate them and check out their progress in an outdoor above ground pool, just like any pool you might find in a backyard here in Australia. When the penguins are secreting enough of their own oil to preen into their feathers (via the gland under their tail), and they are water proof again, we set them free.
Penguins are wild, and that's how we like them to stay
Our problem right now is that it is chick raising season. Penguin parents very much share the role of raising the chick. If dad or mum are killed or taken away, the remaining partner actually frets, staying by the nest and *not* going out to sea to get food for the chick. The chick starves, and eventually the sole parent leaves and swims out.
But with the Hospital right now we are cleaning and getting the Little folk back home as soon as possible, without sparing expense or our own time to ensure it is safe to do so.
The vast majority of released penguins will survive. we just hope we can help enough before their chicks die, or their partners leave.
Thanks everyone for the interest!
reg'ds
kd (Phillip Island Nature Park)
