SAN DIEGO — The world’s smallest penguins have officially made their debut in San Diego and scientists are using them to create a big impact.
Kayla Strate is the lead penguin aquarist at Birch Aquarium and is in charge of taking care of the Little Blue Penguins, along with help from aquarist Laura Reid. They are only about 2 pounds and a foot tall, native to New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania. They are known for their unique blue color, and their big personalities. Strate says they have already found a special connection to their new Southern California home.
“We like to compare them to the size of a San Diego-sized California burrito,” she laughed.
Strate and her team hand-feed each penguin, recording what each one eats every day for every meal to make sure they’re all getting the nutrition they need to thrive.
“We’re basically here to serve them as to whatever they want from us,” she said.
Birch Aquarium is the only aquarium on the West Coast to house Little Blue Penguins, offering visitors an up-close experience to these special seabirds.
“We get to be creative, give them what they need and then I get to share that with people who have never gotten to see a penguin up close,” Strate said. “So that’s really, really exciting when you see a lot of our guests come and they get to be face-to-face with some of these birds, right up against that window and just fall in love with them as much as we are.”
The Little Blue Penguins’ presence in San Diego goes far beyond being cute. Researchers are working to better understand and address the challenges penguins face in the wild.
Doctoral candidate Tammy Russell is a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She’s part of the Penguano Project, investigating plastic pollution in penguins by analyzing their poop. They work with Birch Aquarium to collect guano from the Little Blue Penguins, testing laboratory methods and developing more efficient ways to analyze this hard-to-get guano from wild penguins in Antarctica.
“The least amount of times we open [the Antarctic penguin guano] the better,” Russell said. “First of all, I had never analyzed plastics before, so to get that experience myself was invaluable. And then get that experience enough to train other people, that alone was just an amazing opportunity to partner with Birch Aquarium and get that experience before we crack these open and, you know, you have a panic attack that something didn’t go right.”
Russell said microplastics can affect penguins’ ability to consume seafood in the wild and their tests will also provide insight into how captive penguins are exposed to microplastics.
“We know what they were eating. We know who it came from,” Russell said. “That’s really cool and I feel like there are a lot of possibilities for the future of Penguano Project and working with Birch Aquarium.”
They all hope the Little Blue Penguins inspire everyone to take better care of our world.
“I think penguins are a good ‘gateway’ bird to get fired up about it and I hope our guests come see our penguins here but then when they go to the beach, they start to notice all those other incredible birds that are out there in their community,” Strate said.
San Diego has a similar climate to where Little Blue Penguins are from, making the exhibit a great fit for the penguins. The aquarium hopes that they will eventually form a successful breeding colony, aiding the population worldwide.