Questions about Happy Feet.?

Zee

I guess nobody knows, which is why nobody answers.

I was a bit confused when you said they eat fish by sticking their head under water. They are brilliant divers, and can get down to 600 metres or more in search of fish.

My understanding from what I heard was that the young Emperors do go walkabouts (swimabouts), but usually not so far from Antarctica.

When I heard that, it made me wonder how they could eat snow once they left the mainland. Also, they are not going to get fresh water - the islands are few and very far between - so I suspect that they can tolerate a certain amount of sea water.

Some years ago I was involved with writing a CD encyclopedia on Antartica and did some research on Emperors on the continent. When they breed, it is the males that nurse the single egg through the winter. With temps down to -60C, the penguins huddle together in a tight pack and keep exchanging positions in the pack so that individuals are not always exposed to the winds. From what I saw, they do this on a windswept ice shelf, and there is no snow on the ground, as it is constantly blown around. So, I am not sure of the constant need to eat snow. And I am not convinced that Happy Feet ate sand on our Kapiti beach because he couldn't get snow.

Most birds eat stones of various sizes to use in their crops to grind food, because they do not have teeth. I am not so sure that is what he was doing and that there was only sand around. Maybe he had run out of stones in his crop, and so he landed on that shore to stock up, only to find this was a sandy beach. Maybe he had come too far - some juveniles must make the mistake sometime - and had left it too late to find food. But I am not convinced about the snow thing - wandering juvenile is not going to have access to snow in any case.

As for what he will do when he is set free, I don't think anyone knows. I'd prefer they took him nearer Antarctica, or put him on an ice floe down there where he could make the choice to swim or not.

But what do I know. Just trying to apply logic to the little I know.

I think it is fingers crossed, and we are going to miss him.

"Penguins, like us, need fresh water, and they normally get it by eating snow."

They don't. Penguins do not need fresh water although I have seen royal penguins drinking from a stream after returning to land after months at sea. Like most seabirds they have very efficient kidneys that extract the excess salt from sea water and they can survive on the water in their food and sea water they consume with food. Male emperor penguins towards the end of their winter on the ice will eat snow to provide some water and to help relieve the hunger pangs but once they are back in the sea they don't need fresh water at all.

There is a line called the Antarctic Convergence. This is where the cold, nutrient rich polar water slips below the warmer temperate water. The nutients provide food for the large shoals of fish, krill and squid found in Antarctic waters. If the penguin is released south of the Convergence, which is in the sub-Antarctic, it will have plenty of food and have no reason to head north again.