The Great Penguin Rescue: 40,000 Penguins, a Devastating Oil Spill, and the Inspiring Story of the World's Largest Animal Rescue

by Dyan deNapoli

Overview

On June 23, 2000, the iron ore carrier MV Treasure foundered off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, spilling 1,300 tons of oil into the ocean and contaminating the habitat of 75,000 penguins—thus threatening to decimate 41 percent of the world’s population of African penguins. A massive rescue effort was launched, with penguin expert Dyan deNapoli—better known as The Penguin Lady—serving as a rehabilitation supervisor. By the end of a grueling, but ultimately rewarding, three months, she and her fellow volunteers had de-oiled, nursed back to health, and released into the wild nearly all of the affected birds. The Great Penguin Rescue is the extraordinary and heartwarming true story of the world’s largest and most successful wildlife rescue and a moving portrait of these captivating birds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439148181
Publisher:	Free Press
Publication date:	08/16/2011
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Dyan deNapoli has worked closely with penguins at Boston’s New England Aquarium and in the wild for fifteen years. She has been featured as a penguin expert on several television and radio programs, was hired as the content reviewer for three books about penguins, and authored the Penguin chapter for the New Book of Knowledge encyclopedia. In addition to acting as a guest lecturer on cruises to the Galapagos Islands and Antarctica, she has been a presenter at national and international professional conferences. To date, she has taught approximately 250,000 people in the US and abroad about penguins. She is a member of the National Marine Educators Association, Grub Street writing center, and currently serves as President of the Home-based Businesswomen's Network. She lives beside a pond on Boston’s North Shore and her website can be found at www.thepenguinlady.com.

Read an Excerpt

PROLOGUE:Black Waters—Panic at Sea

The question is not, “Can they reason?” nor, “Can they talk?” but rather, “Can they suffer?”

—JEREMY BENTHAM, EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHER

There they were. The scales on the sardines flashed and shimmered as they reflected the sunlight streaming through the water. After feeding their ravenous chicks for two straight days, and having swum several miles to reach the foraging grounds, the penguins were ready to eat. While they usually went out to sea in small groups, once they located a school of fish, every penguin had to isolate and capture their own prey. Each bird was now on its own. One of the penguins took a deep breath and dove beneath the sparkling surface of the ocean, swimming until it was below the schooling fish. The penguin hovered there, its black back blending in with the dark ocean floor, helping to conceal it from the sardines above. Then, in a sudden burst of speed, it shot up through the swirling mass, grasped a silvery fish behind its gills, and, while still underwater, swallowed it headfirst and whole. A swift and agile hunter, the penguin caught and swallowed several more fish before its aching lungs signaled the need to come up for air. After being underwater for several minutes, it surfaced far from where it had originally submerged.

Only now, the penguin found itself in the midst of a thick and noxious substance that clung to its feathers and slowed it down as it swam. The caustic oil got into the bird’s eyes, burning them and making it hard to see. Confused and anxious, the penguin struggled to make its way through the viscous black stuff floating on the surface of the ocean. The heavy oil coating its body weighed it down, making it hard to keep its head above water. The penguin frantically pumped its wings, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to move. With every breath, it inhaled some water, along with the traces of oil coating its beak. Choking on the toxic mix burning its lungs and throat, the penguin coughed and struggled to breathe.

The sticky oil had caused the penguin’s dense, overlapping feathers to clump and separate, and the cold ocean waters now penetrated its feathers like icy fingers. The water eventually reached the penguin’s skin; as its body temperature plummeted and hypothermia set in, it became weak and disoriented. The penguin swung its head from side to side, searching for the nearest landmass. If it could make it to shore, it might get some relief from the cold and the fumes. There was an island several miles off in the distance, but did the penguin have the strength to swim that far? Instinct drove it to head in that direction. But, in its weakened state, it was several strenuous hours before the island was within reach. As the penguin made its final approach, the breaking waves tossed it violently against the rocks, which were now slick with oil, causing it to slip and struggle to get its footing. Exhausted, the penguin finally heaved itself onto the rocky beach, where hundreds of other penguins stood huddled together, the heavy black oil that slowly dripped from their bodies forming expanding black puddles around their feet.

Some of the penguins stood statue-still. Hunched over, their wings hanging limply by their sides, they were in a state of shock. Others were compulsively preening themselves, trying to remove the thick substance from their bodies; but it was an impossible task. The oil clung to every last feather and, while using their beaks in their futile attempts to clean and straighten them out, the birds were inadvertently swallowing large amounts of the toxic mess. If the oil remained in their intestinal tracts, bleeding ulcers would form, causing their normally green and white feces to turn dark brown from digested blood and swallowed oil. Over time, the toxins from the oil would get into their bloodstreams, where they would break down the red blood cells, leading to anemia. Eventually, the ingested oil could kill them.

The penguins were now landlocked. They could not return to sea to hunt for food, because their soiled feathers no longer provided protection from the icy waters. Any oil-coated penguins that were eventually driven by hunger to brave the waters to feed were quickly forced back to shore by the penetrating cold. Even though schools of fish were just yards away in the ocean, the penguins were compelled to stay on dry land; but standing there, they would soon starve to death. Their hungry chicks would starve as well. It was an impossible situation. There were no good options for the penguins—or their chicks—and there seemed to be no way out of their deadly predicament.

At first, a few hundred penguins were standing on the beaches, then a few thousand, and later, more than 10,000. And still they kept arriving until, in the end, nearly 20,000 penguins covered with oil lined the coasts of South Africa’s Robben and Dassen Islands. Those penguins that couldn’t make it back to land swiftly enough after swimming through the oil succumbed to hypothermia or drowned. The penguin that had struggled to get there from the feeding grounds that day had been fortunate enough to make it back to shore before meeting either of those fates. Eventually, though, one out of every ten oiled penguins standing there would die.

Would this penguin be one of ten as well? Would anyone come to its rescue?

© 2010 Dyan deNapoli

Table of Contents

Prologue: Black Waters-Panic at Sea 1

1 Wing to Wing-20,000 Oiled Penguins 5

2 Dolphin Dreams and Penguin Pursuits-The Seeds Are Planted 20

3 Penguins-Waddling Wonders 32

4 African Penguins-A Species on the Brink 42

5 Disaster Strikes-The Treasure Sinks 60

6 The Big Cleanup-Oil, Oil Everywhere 66

7 Penguins in Crisis-The World Responds 76

8 An Impassioned Plea-Getting the Call to Help 82

9 Salt River-Birth of a Rescue Center 89

10 The Grueling Work Continues-The Emotional and Physical Toll 101

11 Angels in Oilskins-12,500 Dedicated Volunteers 119

12 Toothbrushes and Dishwashing Liquid-Cleaning the Oiled Penguins 136

13 Peter, Pamela, and Percy's Long Swim Home-The World Anxiously Watches 148

14 Thirty-five Hundred Hungry Mouths to Feed-Raising the Abandoned Chicks 160

15 SANCCOB-Thigh Biting and Other Hazards 168

16 Robbery at Gunpoint-Our Allegiance Is Tested 191

17 Leaving the Penguins Behind-A Difficult Departure 197

18 Hope on the Horizon-The Penguins Survive and Thrive 206

19 Freedom for the Remaining Penguins-The Rescue Draws to a Close 217

20 The Lucky Survivors-How Did They Fare? 223

21 Life After the Rescue-The Mission Continues 233

Epilogue: An Uncertain Future-The Forecast for Penguins 239

Acknowledgments 251

Appendices

I The Pressure on Penguins-Current Challenges 255

II How You Can Help Penguins-Rescue Groups and Resources 261

III Just the Facts, Ma'am-The Final Statistics 278

Selected Bibliography 285

How We Made This Book 293

Index 295

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"[DeNapoli's] firsthand account of the rescue...plunges the reader into the maelstrom of animal rescue and rehabilitation on such a large scale." —-Booklist

Editorial Reviews

"Penguin Lady" Dyan deNapoli had never witnessed anything like it. When she first entered the warehouse where more than 10,000 oil-soaked African penguins were being treated, she was astonished that the stricken animals were all silence. The 2000 wreck of an iron-ore carrier had spill 2,600,000 pounds of into the sea, gravely endangering the habitat of 75,000 penguins. Only a rapid, innovative massive rescue effort could save the lives of these helpless little creatures. The Great Penguin Rescue tells the story of a flipper Dunkirk. Editor's recommendation.

"[DeNapoli's] firsthand account of the rescue...plunges the reader into the maelstrom of animal rescue and rehabilitation on such a large scale." ---Booklist

From the Publisher

When a Greek oil tanker sank off the coast of South Africa in June 2000, a massive effort was put into place to save the population of African penguins. There's urgency in Coleen Marlo's voice as she reads Boston penguin expert Dyan DeNapoli's account of the rescue effort. Marlo brings alive the frustration of cleaning thousands of oil-soaked birds. At the same time, Marlo describes the penguin personalities with delight in her voice as the author discusses the similarities between penguins and cats and the penguins’ reactions to human care. Listeners will admire the efforts of volunteers, as well as wildlife experts, and appreciate the penguins as unique, idiosyncratic animals. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2011 - AudioFile