Penguins

Episode Transcript
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Erin Lundy (00:06):
Hi, I'm Erin Lundy.

Madeline Walden (00:07):
And I'm Madeline Walden and this is
Aquarium of the Podcific, apodcast brought to you by
Aquarium of the PodcificSouthern California's largest
aquarium.

Erin Lundy (00:15):
Join us as we learned alongside the experts in
animal care, conservation andmore. Welcome back to Aquarium
of the Podcific My name is ErinLundy. I'm the conservation
coordinator for mammals andbirds and an animal care
specialist and I'm joined by myco host

Hello, I'm Madeline Walden, I'm the
Aquarium's Digital Content andCommunity Manager. Those are
some long titles we have longtitle, like it an Erin,
actually, I have something elseyou need to add to your title
today. And that is sea otter.Pretender sea otter method
actor. Thank you. Can you tellme a little bit about your day
today?

Erin Lundy (00:50):
Of course. So today has been a little bit of a
hectic day. And we'll get intosort of all the exciting things
that have been happening here atthe Aquarium today. But we also
performed an animal escape drillthis morning. That is something
we need to do annually tomaintain our AZA accreditation.
We are accredited by theAssociation of Zoos and
Aquariums, which is an agencythat makes sure that there are

(01:13):
certain standards being upheld,making sure animal welfare is
really good that there'seducation and conservation, and
basically a list of criteriathat says hey, this institution
deserves this accreditation. Sopart of it is that we have to do
animal escape drills on anannual basis. And for me, I got
to pretend to be the escapedanimal today. And as Madeline

(01:33):
mentioned, I was a sea ottermethod actor. And it was
actually a lot of fun. Soessentially, I quote unquote,
escaped from a habitat and wasquote unquote, seen by spotted
one of our staff, who then calland say, Hey, this is a drill.
This is a drill, but I've justseen a sea otter escape from
their habitat, this is wherethey are, and all of the
appropriate staff come torespond. And it's a really cool

(01:56):
multi departmental effort torecapture me the sea otter. And
although it is very unlikelythat anything like that would
ever happen, it's reallyimportant for us to always be
prepared for any type ofemergency. So having people on
site who are trained to respondto that is critical. And it was
actually really fun to pretendto be a sea otter turns out you

(02:16):
can be whatever you want to bewhen you are the escaped animal
you can run around, there's norules, you can hiss at your
coworkers, which is generallyfrowned upon. I refrained from
biting Thankfully, this time,this time, you never know about
next time it's different fromyour day to day. Not Oh, you
mean restrain? Yeah, Irefrained. I had to sign that

(02:36):
paperwork that said I'm notdoing that anymore. But it was
really fun. And it culminated inme being captured in a net, and
transported quote, unquote, backto my habitat. So it was a great
thing to practice in sort of areally fun team bonding
experience. We have people fromthe education department
explaining what exactly is goingon to our guests who just see me

(02:57):
running around with marker andhissing at people. I promise,
I'm normal. This is part of aprofessional occupation. And
then we have people from oursecurity department who would,
quote unquote, secure theperimeter and would do that in
the case of a real escape. So wepractice everything as if it's
real, just so that everyone'sprepared. Yeah. And it's pretty

(03:17):
fun, to be honest. So that wasthe morning. And the other thing
that's been going on today,which is equally exciting, if
not more exciting, to be honest,is that today we launched the
Aquarium's 25th anniversary event

true. So today we had our press event. It's
been a long day. It's been avery fun day, though. We had our
press event this morning, ourpodcast record now. And then
this evening, we have our VIPkickoff as well. So we are
kicking off our 25th anniversarycelebration. That includes a
reimagined gallery that'sopening July 1, and we're
talking in case you're listeningin the future. We are talking

(03:50):
about July 1 2023, which galleryis being renovated. So we have
reimagined our SouthernCalifornia Gallery, and I'm
really excited to see how it'scoming together. It's going to
be a beautiful new space. Ithink our guests will really
really like it.

Erin Lundy (04:04):
That space hasn't been renovated since the
aquarium opened either. Sothat'll be really cool to see
what they are doing. And I knowour life support department and
facilities and really all of theAquarists who are involved in
that. I've been working reallyhard to put some time together.
Yeah, and it's school. I mean,certainly we hear a lot of
construction day to daysometimes I poked my head in
there and like how's it alllooking in there. It looks rad.

(04:26):
Yeah, it's really cool. So ifyou guys are ever here, or if
you're here later this year in2023. Please walk through that
space. It's all being totallyupdated. reimagined should have
some really innovative exhibitsas well which is cool to see.
And I'm really happy that wehave that going on. It's gonna
be awesome. Speaking of aspecies that doesn't live
anywhere near SouthernCalifornia. Today we are going

(04:48):
to be talking all about ourMagellanic penguins. Our
Magellanic penguin habitat islocated on the top floor outside
and it is called our June keyspenguin habitat. If you were to
visit you will see all 19 of arebeautiful Magellanic penguins
that are native to South Americabut a very comfortable living
here in warm weather. Today weare going to have on one of our
wonderful agriculturist AshleyLoper, who is going to tell us

(05:09):
all about our Magellanicpenguins, some of the
shenanigans that are apparentlylots of shenanigans that are
going on there. And a little bitabout the soap opera that seems
to be happening up at ourpenguin habitat. So

a reality TV show up there in the best way in
the best way.

Erin Lundy (05:25):
So we're gonna welcome on Ashley. Thank you
guys so much for joining us. Sotoday we have the pleasure
speaking to Ashley Loper, who isone of our aviculturist here at
the Aquarium. Hi, Ashley.Welcome.

Ashley Loper (05:36):
Hi, thank you.

Erin Lundy (05:37):
What is your job title? And what do you do here?

Like Erin said, I'm an aviculturist here at the
Aquarium. So that means I takecare of all of the birds I'm
cross trained on a little bit ofall of them a little bit, a
little bit of all of them. So Iam cross trained and all of the
birds sections. So that islorikeets penguins, diving
birds, like the puffins, some ofour ambassador species, but I

(06:01):
primarily work with the aquaticbirds is what we kind of call
them. So that would be thepenguins, the puffins and the
other diving birds. And thenalso the waterfowl and
shorebirds.

Erin Lundy (06:10):
Do you have a favorite species that you work
with?

I moved here to this job actually to work with
puffins. Yeah, I worked withpenguins at my other job, but I
do not have puffins.

Okay, forget the theme of the podcast today.
We're talking puffins only. Wewill have you back on top
puffins because I think that'san animal that gets forgotten
about sometimes I think so too.

They actually weren't on the website a lot
when I was looking at the jobwhere I was like, I don't even
know if they have that. But myfriend was like, no, they do.

Erin Lundy (06:34):
They for sure have puffins on Yeah, our diving bird
exhibit is really cool. We havesome of our animals have been
here since before the aquariumopened in that habitat. So they
are charter animals as well.Well, you said that you worked
with penguins at your last job.How long? Have you been working
with penguins? And why did youget into it?

I've been working with penguins about six years, I
think total. And I got into itbecause I loved birds. I
actually went to college knowingI wanted to work with birds. I
just didn't know how. And I gotmy first internship at the
Alaska sealife Center workingwith puffins up there in Alaska.
And I fell in love with seabirdsand aquatic birds. So I ended up
kind of shuffling around acouple of different jobs finding

(07:11):
exactly where I fit in. And Idid education for a little bit
before jumping over to penguinsonce again. And I happen to land
at an aquarium that had them andI learned a lot about them. And
I feel like that's a reallystrong point for me. So I really
liked working with them.

Erin Lundy (07:24):
I think something that people often don't realize
is that getting into this field,you sort of you know, work a
couple of different internshipsor different positions to see
what's the right fit. And evenif you think, Hey, this is the
species for me, you might not beright. Like I I got hired as a
mammal person and now I'm mostlya frog. And I think that's kind
of how it goes in sort of thezoo field.

It's kind of cool. I hear a lot of people I love to
convert non bird people intobirds. That's like my hobby.
Nobody thinks they're gonna lovebirds. Like let me tell you how
fun they are.

Erin Lundy (07:53):
And I think penguins are sort of a really good
transition point because theyare a lot like some of our
mammal species even though theyare birds. So penguins are
pretty great. I used to work alittle bit more focused with our
penguins, and our colony hereand they are wonderful.

at the Aquarium of the Pacific. We have
Magellanic penguins. Have youever worked with a different
species of penguin?

I did. So my background was actually with
African penguins, which is likethe cousin of the Magellanic
penguins sort of they look verysimilar and they act pretty
similar but there was a coupleof differences that I got used
to when I transitioned over theMagellanic penguins a little bit
more here for what I was toldMagellanics were nicer which so
far I actually agree with arepretty nice. So far Magellanic

(08:37):
penguins are a little bit niceras far as penguins good to know
we have good penguins. I thinkso. So I've been a big fan of
working with them. Magellanicpenguins also have a migration
season which African penguinsdid not have. So that was an
interesting difference.

Yeah, I figured that was just kind of across the
board that they all had similarseasons, like, yeah, that was

a new mindset for me what I got here and I started
hearing people it was like,well, it might not be that
dramatic, and that I saw thebehavior change for migration.
Oh, it's very distinct.

We'll get into that. Yeah, there

Erin Lundy (09:08):
are seasons animals. Yeah. For our penguin colony,
specifically do how do we haveour penguins? Where did they
come from? And sort of what'sthe conservation story behind
our penguin colony?

That is a good question. So we've got penguins
from a couple different places.So some of them came to us from
other AZA, zoos and aquariums.Some of them were hatched right
here at Aquarium of the Pacific.We have a couple of those. And
then some of them were wildrescues. So actually in Brazil,
there was a mass stranding eventa couple years ago, and there
was a lot of penguins thatwashed up and needed rescue. And
a few of those were deemed nonreleasable. So when that

(09:39):
happened, they tried to look forpermanent homes for them, and we
were able to house a couple ofthem. So some of our residents
here. Robbie, Kate and Roxy areall rescue penguins from the
wild.

Erin Lundy (09:49):
That's pretty cool. So we don't really know what
their history or theirbackground is, but it seems like
they're doing pretty well here.They have families here.

They definitely do. I think they've both been
parents are I think Roxy has hada chick and

Erin Lundy (10:02):
yeah, Roxy's mom to, seven, I think or she's had a
lot of babies. Wow.

That was that many I knew she had some but seven,
prolific.

Erin Lundy (10:11):
well represented genetics is what we like to say.

But that's good. That was wild genetics that we
didn't have in the population.And now we do.

Yeah, so I'm gonna stop right there because I
think people are gonna helphere. Wait, penguins in Brazil?
And then we have penguins herein Long Beach, California. How
are we able to have the speciesof penguin in a warm habitat? I
think people always assumepenguins, cold, freezing ice
blocks running around. That's

probably the most common question I get by the
exhibit is everybody looks athim and goes, where's the snow
and ice, are they warm. Sothat's one of my favorite
penguin misconceptions iseverybody pictures them all in
Antarctica? I think becausethose are the guys that get the
dramatic nature documentary madeabout them. Everybody wants to
show you the ones of snow andice in the blizzard like there

(10:55):
are pigments all over thesouthern hemisphere. So not just
in South America like theMagellanic penguins, but they're
in Africa. Like I said, I workedwith African penguins. They're
in the Galapagos Islands aroundAustralia and New Zealand. So
there are lots of penguinspecies that actually live in
more temperate warm climates. SoSouthern California, the
climates not so different fromwhat they would be getting in
Brazil. Yeah,

Erin Lundy (11:13):
that's interesting. Do you know where how penguins
evolved? What are their sort ofclosest relatives in the bird
world?

I read about this a couple of years ago. You could
fact check me on it. I thinkit's loons. Oh, you would think
it would be the other seabirdslike the I don't know, gannets,
and MERS and like acids, but Ithink it might be loose.

Erin Lundy (11:31):
That's interesting.

I would have to fact check it. That was a while
back. I

Erin Lundy (11:33):
read that it's cool.

I can see it, for sure.

Erin Lundy (11:39):
That's interesting that seemingly like the puffins
and the penguins develop verysimilar coloration of like that
black and white on the belly,but yeah,

it it's fun puffins kind of fill that niche
in the northern hemisphere, andthen you have penguins in the
southern hemisphere could alsofly so

they win in that regard. Yeah, penguins
cannot. If anyone confirmed

Erin Lundy (12:01):
why do they develop that coloration

that is actually camouflage, believe it or not,
so you don't think of black andwhite being camouflage and
blending into well, but if youthink about their lifestyle,
they are swimming a lot out inthe ocean as penguins do. And if
there's a predator swimming frombelow, and they happen to look
up, they're gonna see the whitebelly of the penguin. So that
blends in with the light comingin from above, and then if
there's a predator like flyingover them, they're gonna see the

(12:24):
black back which is going toblend in a little bit more to
the water. So that's type ofcamouflage called counter
shading.

Speaking of their predators, what are
predators to the Magellanicpenguin.

So there are some seals and sea lions that will
predate on them and then onland, they have some of the
bigger like birds of prey andsee birds like skuas, which is a
crazy kind of seabird but theywill go after them as well for
especially for the chicks. Andthen I read recently, Pumas
actually are a really bigproblem from actually like, what
you don't think about Wow, yeah.Okay, so they do have some

(12:56):
predators.

Erin Lundy (12:58):
I did not. When I was surprised

by that one to a shocking tale.

Erin Lundy (13:03):
I think that's something people don't always
realize is that penguins, atleast Magellanic penguins are
incredibly terrestrial for alarge portion of the year. And
so people don't really thinkabout that, right. Like they are
nesting on land. Yeah.

And for those nests, they will sit there in
that spot and try to defendthem. So sometimes, yeah, that
makes them a little bit morevulnerable. There's some
penguins I might bet against.

Admiral Fancypants.

You'd be surprised, yes,

he could hold his own.

Erin Lundy (13:34):
So now that we've talked a little bit, we do have
a penguin named AdmiralFancypants that might be the
best name.

I think it's one of the best names ever.

Erin Lundy (13:41):
But they all do have pretty individualistic
personalities, right? They eachhave their own, like yes, like
you wouldn't think

so. But they definitely all have very
individual personalities. And itcan come down to as specific as
food preferences. So there aresome that might eat only a
certain type of fish. And notonly that, but some of them you
have to hold that fish a veryparticular way or they will not
take it from you. So they aredefinitely quirky little animals
that 72

degrees. Exactly needs to be held at a
particular angle. Yeah, exactly.

Erin Lundy (14:10):
I have a feeling I know which penguin you're
referring to. I believe

you do so she has an interesting name but the
pickiest penguin
ironically is named Whatever buthe does not eat whatever she
eats what type of fish and youhave to hold it very specific.

Okay, we need to talk about Whatever's name
means story. Do you Do you knowher name? I

Erin Lundy (14:27):
don't know her story Madeline.

I have to shout out to our past Tiktok lives
have been able to learn a lotabout our animals. But whatever
was named, she came from adifferent another AZA accredited
facility. And they had so manychicks that year. That they
literally said just name herWhatever. And they took that
very literally. I

always wondered, like, imagine that scenario, and
I just never had it confirmedand she's currently our oldest.
Yeah, she is our oldest penguin.I think she's 22 going on 23
Very soon, I think by the end ofthe month. We're in early June.

Erin Lundy (15:01):
How long do they live typically?

So out in the wild like 15 years would be average
are getting up there in age inzoos and aquariums. I have
worked with penguins as old as37. And I believe their 40s Wow.
So I think that process Yeah,very highly to the care that
they get here. Sure

Erin Lundy (15:16):
what types of symptoms of being geriatric
well, they

develop, it's a lot like things people will
develop. And if you have agingpets, it's very similar. So
you'll start to see cataractssometimes as they age. Also,
arthritis is a big one that wewatch first. So you'll start to
notice them not moving around aseasily, or being a little bit
more stiff penguin arthritis. Iactually worked with a penguin
that got acupuncture forarthritis. It's not crazy. And I
was not necessarily a believer,but I'm I saw just a different

(15:42):
penguin. Yeah. Wow, that's

so cool. Right?

So I have never had acupuncture.

Erin Lundy (15:50):
I always love it. How much better are animals
sometimes get treated? And likethe people are like, Yeah, I've
never eaten food this expensivein my life, or acupuncture and
all of these specific references

rate a

seafood every number one comment we get on our
tiktoks of Penguin physicalexams like, wow, this penguin
has better health care than?Yeah, absolutely.

Erin Lundy (16:12):
Which is, well, we can talk a little bit about that
health care and sort of whatgoes into, you know, the
husbandry and overall care ofour penguins. What does a day in
the life of a penguin caretakerlook like?

It's a lot of cleaning. They poop a lot. So it
is a lot of cleaning, startingoff in the morning trying to get
everything ready. We arescrubbing the habitat, we are
vacuuming if we need to, becausethey have a little a lot of
little rocks on their habitatright now, especially nesting.
So we sometimes have to vacuumthose up. It's going in and
checking out everybody right nowwe're feeding them two times a
day. But if we see theirappetite really increase,

(16:44):
sometimes we'll feed them up tothree times a day. And it is
hand feeding every singleindividual Penguin, which helps
us monitor how much that theyare eating. So we do that twice
a day as well.

Erin Lundy (16:53):
What about like a veterinary exam? How might you
go about that?

veterinarians that work full time right here on
site that we're able to takethose birds to so we will
schedule that will get everybodyto go in, they get listened to
so they check their heart, theirlungs, they check their feet to
make sure there's no sores oranything. They'll check their

(17:19):
eyes inside their mouth. I mean,it's really thorough, and then
they also get full blood workdone as well to make sure
there's nothing else going onunder that we can't find. Okay,

we talked a little bit about what they eat
at our aquarium. But somethingthat I want to talk about is
their mouths and how out oftheir mouths terrifying they
are. So scary the way a penguinsmouth look.

Yeah, if you've never seen it, Google it right
now. Right now definitely

attach a video in the show notes to you so you
can see it. It's pretty

crazy. So they actually have these fleshy
little I'm going to call themspikes. I feel like that's the
most accurate.

They are my picture. Yeah. Spikey.
Terrifying name

for them. It's it's pipilae. But they are
textures on the roof of theirmouth and also their tongue so
kind of spikes above and below.But it's because they're eating
fish and fish are very, veryslippery. If you've ever tried
fishing or holding fish, youknow that I dropped them more
than I like to

Erin Lundy (18:10):
or frozen fish.

I've wiggling fish out the ocean would be fishing
for those live fish and tryingto catch them. And those
populate just give some extratexture and help them hang on to
and grip those fish

because they're swallowing them whole right?
They're not chewing. Yeah,

it's impressive. So they do swallow all of their
food whole. They don't tear itup like birds of prey. And they
are able to eat something aboutthe same size as their wing and
they swallow it completely.Whoa, I

didn't realize it that big. Wow.

Yeah, there are some where I take out a big
herring and I go oh, there's noway. They make it look easy.
Like it's nothing.

Erin Lundy (18:42):
I think my favorite thing when they eat like a
really big fish is they getthese weird little shakes after

I call it the trash compactor. Because it
looks like they eat a lot. Andthen they put their neck like
they compress it down in theirbody. And it's like they're
squishing everything down. Soeven some of my volunteers that
have started saying, Oh, thetrash compactor is happening.
That's

Erin Lundy (19:03):
a really good way to describe it. What kinds of fish
are penguins typically eating.

So here we feed them two types of fish as the
main part of their diet. So theyget capelin and herring, but
we're also able to throw someextra stuff in there every now
and then for a variety sosometimes we'll feed squid which
is not always a favorite, but

some of them want to learn that across some
animals with our animals, but

it's not popular. No one really

like there's animals that really love squid
so much that they swallow thatwhole and some that don't like
it at all and they maybe put upa little bit of a pout

yeah, they might have it and spit it out.
Recently we also tried a littlefish called Night smelt which
again was not very popular. Wehad some that didn't seem to
care they would eat anything andthen we had some that would
absolutely not eat it whateverthey would take it and walk away
yeah, Whatever. And it looks sosimilar to the Katelyn but
somehow they are able to tell itapart. They know

Erin Lundy (19:51):
how does your beak feel the different like what is
different about this that youknow

things their sense of smell?

They think really good for them do not have a
great sense. Oh, Yeah, yeah

they are a little stinky I can I can attest
to that.

Erin Lundy (20:07):
Well, what is their, their natural habitat is all
poop, right?

Yeah, they actually nest and dig and poop
and they live in, you know,colonies of 200,000 individuals.
So they're pooping all the timea lot. It's not smell great. So
they don't that's not one oftheir stronger senses is their
sense of smell. And that'sprobably a good thing for them.

Let's talk a little bit about their habitat
here at the Aquarium so they arenot living in their poop here.
Let's talk about their daily.

Every single morning is a full scrub down and
we also host in the pm as wellso they are not living in their
poop here.

And what about those holes on the habitat?
Where do those lead to it's alot

of fun. So those are their nesting burrows. If
you see them going and hangingout in front of those or going
into them, it leads behind thescenes through a little tunnel
into a kennel. So we actuallyhave kind of like it is a dog
kennel not kind of like a dogkennel. They haven't seen dog
kennels back there that we havekind of modified for our birds,
we have substrate in there andthey are able to come back
behind the scenes and nest andthen we're able to use the
kennel door and peek at them ifwe need to and feed and do any

(21:04):
sort of maintenance.

Erin Lundy (21:05):
I think it's it's pretty interesting. You think of
birds typically is like like bigopen spaces. But a penguin is
creating this little hole andwould like burrow in it like
that seems so

they would and they will if they will find
little spaces that look likeholes. Like if you have anything
vaguely around like a jacketthat's kind of propped up.
They're like, can I go?

Fit? I sit

somewhere where they're like, is this a burrow?
For me, I would go that instinctis pretty strong. So in the
wild, they would nest maybeunder plants and under bushes.
They like to feel prettyconfined, but they will also
just totally dig a burrow.

Erin Lundy (21:38):
That's so crazy. Digging birds.

Dig those birds. I think those

Erin Lundy (21:44):
birds are all right.

So speaking of those nest boxes, we have
several penguin pairs on in ourhabitat do they mate for life?
Or is that? Are they monogamous?Are they monogam-ish?

Monogamy ish is a good way to put it. I say that
they are monogamous in the sameway. Sometimes humans are
monogamous. Got it. Sometimesyou stay together for life and
things are great. And thensometimes it doesn't work out
and you go your separate waysand try again with someone new.
So we do have that happen. Soagain, I've worked with penguins
that have been together 20 plusyears, same individual, right
good love story.

Erin Lundy (22:16):
And then some bad loves that I've

had some drama and some that like to shop around a
little bit more before theysettled

for them. I always recommend that chop
around a little bit. Whatever

penguins, you feel like you should do the most

Erin Lundy (22:28):
that might be better than people it is. Now I'm
part, they do tend to stay withthe same partner, they'll come
back year after year, I thinkit's like an 80% fidelity rate
for some 80% of them will staytogether depending on the
species
imagining the year of thepenguin. And we'll talk a little
bit about seasonality for theseanimals, but they are coming

(22:48):
back to the same mate year afteryear. But that's following
migration, right like right, sohow do they find each other?

They I think say same time next year. But they
don't necessarily stay togetherout in the ocean either out so
they will start travelingtogether necessarily not
necessarily see you next rightlike sometime next year. And
they also return to the sameburrow generally year after
year. So that is time and aplace breeding season. This
burrow, catch you next year.

Love you. Bye.

Erin Lundy (23:15):
See you next year after I'm done migrating. Do you
think that there is evidence ofpotentially recognizing each
other by how they look? Or howcan they in a colony of 200,000
Penguins? How do you find youryour loved one.

So I do think they can tell each other apart
visually, there are some thatdefinitely seem to have beef
with one another. But they alsoknow their mates and then
audibly they can tell each otherapart to by vocalizations, which
is pretty crazy. And I've seenit in action. I've seen a bird
not be visible to another one.So it could be behind a door or
just around the corner and thehabitat and they'll actually

(23:48):
call out to their mate and theirmate will swim over and walk
over to where their mate iscalling for them.

Erin Lundy (23:52):
Excuse me, where's my wife?

Exactly when they know the voice and they will
respond to it and they'll startlooking around for their mate.
So that's a really crazy waythey tell each other apart is by
their voice kind of romantic. Iknow. I don't know if I can tell
some of my friends apart bythey're probably not all of
them. Yes. I don't know. I guesson the radios we tell each other
apart pretty good. Maybe I'mselling us short.

So that all sounds very sweet. And we know
how adorable the penguin is. ButI guess there's two kind of
terrifying things about them.It's their mouths and also their
honking their vocalizations.It's not necessarily scary, but
I think it's so unexpected.

It is not what you would expect. Ashley what

is a penguin sound like I've heard Erin has a
really good impression. I heardScott does it's pretty good.
Better keep that in there.

Erin Lundy (24:43):
This is my impression of two penguins
jousting. We'll see how thatcame through.

Part time foley artist Yeah.

Erin Lundy (24:55):
I'm a penguin. And now Madeline What does their
honk sound like how I'm theprofessional Scott slowly
playing it. That's what they dothey sound like

they sound like a donkey. Yeah, that's what I hear
a lot. Yeah, that's very muchlike a donkey braying. I will
not make you listen to me dothat. But I do have another call
that I really like. And it'smore of a woo. And that's Erin
calls it Penguin Marco Polo,their way of saying, Where are
you, I'm over here, but justgive a little Ooh, to locate

(25:36):
each other sometimes. And it'svery cute.

Erin Lundy (25:37):
So sweet.
I'm sure that that's reallyimportant if they got separated
out my grading so that they'renot just one penguin all by
themselves, I've heard it calleda contact call. And that that
low frequency carries a lotfurther over a long distance so
that if they're on the ocean,like oh,

you're coming in after a successful day of
hunting for fish, and you'rewalking through a colony of
200,000 Penguins. And you got tofind your penguin. Hello.

Erin Lundy (26:05):
Anybody. It is definitely not the noise you
expect to come. Now I carrydifferent when

it is not. And they will all be out there doing
that at the same time. Some daysyou can't even hear yourself
think because it is just likebeing surrounded by very loud
donkeys.

Erin Lundy (26:20):
They're having a conversation. You just don't
understand. Can you tell themapart by their vocalizations?

I like to pretend that I can't I'm not great at it
sometimes that sometimes they'llbe around the corner and we'll
hear them and we're like, Oh, Ibet that's this or something
like that. And I sometimes weget it sometimes we're pretty
good. But not all the time. Notas good as a penguin is about
telling us

Erin Lundy (26:42):
Well, we have help telling them apart, right? We
have each of our penguins iswearing a cute little bracelet
on their flipper, called theirbead band. And can you tell us a
little bit about why that mightbe?

Yeah, it is stylish and function. So that is
the way we tell them apart. Soeverybody's got their own unique
color combination on there. Andwe actually have ladies banded
on the left and the males bandedon the right hand side. And
that's one of the ways to IDthem. So they do look very
similar. I don't know if you'venoticed, but they are all black
and white. pretty tricky to tellthem apart. So those little bead

(27:14):
bands are very helpful,especially when you're learning
the penguins. But then if youare in there every single day,
and you're seeing them, I reallydon't even use the bands that
much anymore, because you'llstart to notice very distinct
facial features that they havelike some of them have more
white cheeks than other ones.There are some that have very
like reddish colored eyescompared to the others and stuff
like that. So you start to relyon that. Another cool thing is

(27:34):
they all have their own uniquespeckle pattern on their belly.
That's kind of like the penguinversion of a fingerprint. And it
stays the same year after yeareven when they shed their
feathers. So you can tell themapart without using the bands if
you really sit there and studythem.

Erin Lundy (27:46):
Which you have. I'm guessing all the time. Who is
the prettiest penguin answerright now? Go. You know, I know.

Oh, that's really hard. I think Kate is very
pretty. I think she has a reallypretty penguin face. I wonder
who's your who's

Erin Lundy (27:58):
Kate the prettiest penguin

Realy? I thought it was um,

Erin Lundy (28:00):
Paddles is the cutest thing. Oh,

they are different, Paddles is very cute.
But Kate is pretty.

Erin Lundy (28:05):
That's pretty interesting to think that we can
tell them apart by sort of theirfacial features if you get
familiar enough. And I imagineit's like having 100 of the same
dog species or dog breed right.You can tell them apart because
it makes sense to you. Thatone's slightly browner than the

one where I'm like, Well, her beak is slightly
smaller and her head looks tiny.And her body or some of them
have like stubby legs.

Erin Lundy (28:27):
Well, sometimes we don't have those bead bands on
right because they are veryseasonal animals. And you
mentioned molting and duringthat molt we take off their bead
bands. Why is that?

Yes, molting is playing on expert mode when it
comes to telling them verydifficult. But when they molt,
it's a very dramatic process. Sothey actually lose most of their
feathers all at the same timewithin the span of about two
weeks. So it's called acatastrophic molt. And it looks
very catastrophic when it'shappening because they are just
sloughing feathers, it lookslike a penguin pillow fight out
there. All the time, we've got abunch of featherless penguins

(28:58):
walking around. It's veryridiculous. But before that goes
on, they tend to bulk up andbuild up a lot of body fat. So
that bracelet could get a littlebit too tight if we leave it on
there. So we will take it offjust to make that process a
little bit more comfortable.Because it doesn't look like a
comfortable process already. Sobetween the bulking and the
shedding feathers, we just wantto take that bracelet off and
give them time to go ahead andshed and get that process over

(29:20):
with.

It's a rough season for them.

It looks pretty miserable.

We have to put a sign out every single year to
kind of explaining why they looklike that and

like because it's normal. Right? Everybody thinks
they're sick because they'rejust sitting there with no
feathers like looking miserable.

The name catastrophic molt definitely
it's it is a catastrophe. It'snatural and happens to them
every single year. That'snatural.

Erin Lundy (29:43):
I love that penguins have normal plumage that's in
their winter and migration andthen breeding plumage, which is
just a very slight change totheir face. You haven't noticed?

It is pretty cool. So when they first molt, they
actually will keep little tinyfeathers on their face, and they
start to lose Lose them in thebreeding season. So their face
goes bear and it kind ofcoincides with breeding season
and summer because that's one ofthe ways they lose heat is by
air coming across some beerpatches on their face. So it
freshens up, they look a littlebit more fresh and have their
makeup on. You'll start to seethat change. Yeah,

Erin Lundy (30:15):
I've heard that they are prone to specific penguin
fleas and ticks that can causeanemia. And so having a little
like rosy blush means that youprobably don't have as many
parasites as and so you're ahealthier mate option. Wow,

that's so

Erin Lundy (30:33):
fewer ticks.

You're the one for me,

Erin Lundy (30:38):
is a cute little blush that they get though.
That's adorable, breedingplumage, just less feathers.
Slightly less.

The opposite is almost like they had like their
eyelashes done and like,

it will save that for the puffins to do that one.

Erin Lundy (30:51):
Oh, boy. We're gonna talk about puffin plumage

puffins next season for sure, we

Erin Lundy (30:56):
definitely will. Well, something that the guests
who might come to the aquariummight see with our penguin
habitat is that we've recentlyremodeled and if you haven't
been here since last year, andour penguins were for a little
bit behind the scenes due toavian influenza, but they are
now back on the habitat with anewly remodeled habitat. So what
did we do? What do we change,

we changed a couple of things out there. But
the really big one is we added alot of river rock substrate,

it looks amazing. I think

it looks really nice out there. It's been fun.
Watching the penguins get usedto it because it does wobble and
move a little bit more. Sothey're kind of figuring that
out. And that's new, but it isalso very good for them. So the
whole reason we switched thatsubstrate was to help with foot
health, by having their feet bein different positions, those
rocks move. So it's never thatthey're going to be sitting in
the same spot with their feet inexactly the same position
because you can start to havesores develop as that happens.

(31:44):
It's also good for buildingmuscle and stuff like that, too,
and keeping them a little bitmore healthy and mobile as they
age.

It looks amazing.

I think so too, it's very, very fun out there,

Erin Lundy (31:53):
it's a little bit more naturalistic looking those
ages

that kind of mimic their natural habitat is

a little bit I think it would be smaller rocks,
and maybe a little bit more dirtnot so much that rock stacked on
top of rock, but it is reallygood for them. It also helps
with drainage. So we're nothaving water just sit there and
they're standing in puddles, itkind of keeps them elevated a
little bit more, which ishelpful for them.

Erin Lundy (32:12):
So it's it's just overall a really good welfare
change in addition to being goodaesthetics for the habitat.
Yeah, I

think so too.

Erin Lundy (32:19):
I like seeing changes that benefit the
animals. You know, like, I likethat we think that way, and
we're like, Hey, how can we helpthe penguins while they're off
habitat, just fix the wholehabitat to be more rocks.

That is only the changes that you can see, we are
also working behind the scenestrying to update some things as
well. We're looking at how wecould revamp our nesting box
setup and stuff like that, too.It's exciting, I think so it's
kind of a cool time to be here.

Erin Lundy (32:40):
Well, kind of blending right into nesting and
some of the behaviors that arepenguins are showing. One of our
social media questions for youtoday is that we've heard that
there are quite a fewshenanigans that happen up in
habitat. So what are yourfavorite stories and sort of
what's the tea what's going onup there?

There are definitely penguin shenanigans.
All the tea. We very frequentlysit in our like staff office and
we give everybody the lowdown onall the stuff that's happening.
It's never a dull moment. Is itso I jokingly call it the young
and the nestless soap opera outthere. So to update you on some

(33:19):
of the happenings just thisseason, this is just a season,
like a year after

Erin Lundy (33:23):
season like 12 of the young and the nestless

This season. We had a penguin leave her mate for
the neighbor. Yeah, so thisseason, we had a bird named
Heidi and Anderson and they weretogether. And then Heidi left
Anderson for the neighbor Wallywhile he was previously a single

(33:48):
young man. So now Wally andHeidi are together and they
still live next door. Oh, it'srough but Anderson was not left
alone. So we had quite theshakeup. So we had another pair
that was Patsy and Gatz and Gatzwas a little bit more interested
in people and doing his ownthing. And he was late to the
game building a nest He was notinterested. So Patsy left him.

(34:11):
It was rough. He didn't comebothered but poor Patsy was
looking around for any guy andshe went and kind of inserted
herself with Anderson. Okay,

Erin Lundy (34:19):
she was so you have a nest.

You have a nest, I know what you're doing. So she
would crawl into the nest and atfirst he was kind of mean to her
he would peck at her Oh, andstuff like that. Yeah. And she
was just kind of like, Okay,well I'm gonna be here and I
think this is kind of sadsounding. I think they settled
for each other and they're stilltogether I think a lot nicer to
her now. That's it was not loveat first sight on the sled. And

(34:42):
then Gatz was left to be oursingle male on habitat this year
because we do not have equalmales and females there's one
more male and it is Gatz

Erin Lundy (34:49):
just gets so long. Do you want to know the twist
ending is that Anderson Wallyand Gatz are all brothers
actually, right
It really is a

soap opera. Yeah.

Erin Lundy (35:04):
Wow. Wow.
That's amazing. That's amazing.That's the tea that is a lot and
that's just this season that

is just this season that it's stuff like that
happens I've noticed each otherfrom now sometimes they might
want their neighbors nestsometimes the they leave each
other it is always drama.

I don't know if we mentioned it yet. How many
penguins do we have?

We have 19 Penguins out there.

Erin Lundy (35:25):
So we got one single male, one single male, and it's
been Gatz this season. Lastyear. It was Wally, as you
mentioned, so with Gatz thisyear, what's he been up to
without a girlfriend,

he is now single and very ready to mingle. He's
not only very late to the game,so he worked very diligently
collecting a lot of nestingmaterials. So we give them palm
fronds here that we cut off ofpalm trees and we sanitize them
many, many many times and thengive them to the penguins and
guests would come and justgather mouthfuls of them and
carry them in and then one day Iactually looked at his nest box

(35:57):
and there was no palm fronds and
sabotage was out for a swim hisneighbor stole his wife
thankfully it was it

Erin Lundy (36:09):
would be too much too much betrayal

he lost his wife and he got robbed

Erin Lundy (36:15):
that's a home invasion very dramatic. So if
they were to penguins togetherones typically guarding the nest
and the other one is sort ofthey kind

of take shifts so they both do take turns like
taking care of him sitting onthe egg and taking care of the
chicks usually got one will beon nest duty and the other will
go look for food and take theirswim time. Some of them are
better mates than others some ofthem yeah Anderson I wasn't
gonna name names

Erin Lundy (36:41):
Couples therapy for sure poor Patsy

might know she got like two breaks
this whole nesting season was goPatsy

Erin Lundy (36:49):
Anderson you do all the egg work

I've just got a guard takes that guarding job
very serious funny

Erin Lundy (36:55):
to think that they each can be problematic in their
own ways. And that differentpenguins are problematic year to
year, when you said that gas wasa little bit more interested in
people. Do you mean that he'sfriendly with people? Or is it
something different?

It is a little bit of both. So sometimes it's
friendly. But sometimes he getsa little bit too excited and he
thinks people are his mates. Andthat is not something that we
want to encourage. So usuallythat's okay, we're done
interacting right now. Becausewe do want guests to know he's a
penguin and to eventually find apenguin love.

Erin Lundy (37:27):
But not Patsy. Patsy betrayed him who stole his
stuff.

I think Mattson didn't know. Yeah. Mattson had a
lot of palm fronds. Many, manyall

Erin Lundy (37:40):
of a sudden, yeah, no, these

are mine. Yeah, worked really hard to get

Erin Lundy (37:45):
me and my wife Lily did this. No idea what you're
talking about. That's hilarious.So when the males typically are
gathering the nesting material,or is it sort of equal?

Tends to be the males. Yeah, the males will go
out and gather a lot of palmfronds. It's really funny. We
usually keep the palm fronds ona white bucket. And all we have
to do is carry a white. I couldhave anything. I was getting one
to clean rocks for a little bit.I was putting him in the white
bucket, and they would all comeup and go palm fronds. They all
just stare at me like give uspalm fronds. This is the white

(38:15):
bucket like bucket. Mygirlfriend

Erin Lundy (38:17):
really wants some more palm fronds. Just give me
the frods. So when they aregathering Do they ever gathered
like other pieces of furnitureto put in? Or is it typically
just the fronds and sticks andthings like that?

It's funny you say that just this morning, I found
a white towel. Left somewhere apenguin could grab it. And it
was in somebody's nest box.

Erin Lundy (38:37):
So fun. No,

they absolutely will gather other things. So
I've seen them grab brushes whenI'm out trying to carry those
into their burrow as well. Erinhas a really good story about
something that was taken fromher.

Erin Lundy (38:49):
I used to have my ID badge that was right on my
keychain. And it was a day thatI was out in penguins. And I
don't know if I was cleaning orI was you know doing an
encounter or what but I justremember Fisher coming up seeing
my keys and my ID badge and justdeciding that my ID badge would
be a really wonderful additionto his nest and he fully pulled
it off my keychain and justbrought so at one point, Fisher

(39:12):
said I'm Erin Lundy so

He wanted a picture of you

Erin Lundy (39:17):
Identiy theft is not a joke Fisher

they have gone for my camera strap before like
the my actual camera strap oreven just like you know,
sometimes I'm wearing a jacketor something that has you know,
something's taken off

my keys all the time. shoe laces I've had them
on time I shoot for

Erin Lundy (39:40):
like really this would look good. There's my I
think this is it. This

is what I think Fisher wanted a picture of you
in his home

Erin Lundy (39:47):
it and it's no it was covered. It definitely had
poop on it when I got so I don'tthink it was a nice thing.

Oh no, maybe it was

Erin Lundy (39:56):
just he's one of my favorite penguins. But after
that, I don't know Are we? Arewe friends? Or is this some sort
of weird evil thing that you'redoing Fisher? That is too funny?
Well, we do have some otherquestions from social media.

This is a very fun episode. Yeah, these
penguins shenanigans, there'salways so much that we could
talk about.

Erin Lundy (40:15):
And the young and the nestless is my new favorite
soap opera that I willdefinitely tune into. If you do
want to see the young and thenestless, you can come see our
penguins at our Magellanicpenguin habitat. It's on the
second floor outside, it's onthe third floor outside. And you
can usually see most of ourpenguins out interacting, you
can tell them all apart by theirbead bands, we have three
floors,

that like half floor, that's true,

I think we should say second, though,

Erin Lundy (40:40):
is on the top floor outside. Our penguin habitat is
on the top floor outside. And ifyou want to identify all of the
major actors and actresses andthe young and the nestless, we
do have a cute little sign thatactually has everyone's bead
colors. And you can tell who'swho and who is

causing what drama, reality TV show of all
time, it's pretty great.

Erin Lundy (41:00):
Sometimes I just sit and watch and it's a lot. But
anyway, some of our other socialmedia questions are how many
species of penguins are thereand what are the biggest and
smallest species?

That is for how many species that's actually
kind of a debated topic amongthe penguin scientists of the
world. So there's not alwaysagreement in science on how to
classify those but I go by 18 SoI say there's 18 Different
penguin species 17 Well that'sjust some people group certain

(41:31):
wants together and likesubspecies and stuff like that.
So I say that there are 18species, and the smallest is
going to be the little bluePenguin or the fairy penguin.

Erin Lundy (41:39):
It's a cute name right?

And then the largest is the emperor penguin.

Erin Lundy (41:43):
That's also a cute name for them.

How large are the emperor penguins?

I think they're like three feet now even larger
than that maybe like three tofour range

Erin Lundy (41:53):
and how big are our penguins?

Probably about like two feet and a half

Erin Lundy (41:58):
they're big but not that some are bigger than
others. Looking at you getsagain

I need to take up a little measuring are we gonna
have on the door like little hioh,

we need to make that absolutely. Well I think
it's funny because I believe thetallest penguin and the shortest
penguin are a pair. Is thatright? Not shim depends

Erin Lundy (42:18):
on the neckline.

It does. I think Patsy and whatever are pretty
equally matched. I think Patsymight be tinier.

Erin Lundy (42:26):
I think whatever just

to she looks like a little goblin. Yes.

Erin Lundy (42:30):
Just like I'm 23

but Shim was definitely one of our larger
ones. He's very tall. He istall. Yeah, and Robbie's another
one of our really big boys RobHe's so handsome. He is He and
Kate are a pair. So the our twomost like beautiful or just
model penguins are a pair.

Erin Lundy (42:45):
They are really cute together.

They're beautiful. So that couple

that couple

Erin Lundy (42:50):
everyone wants to be Robbie and Kate came to rescue
penguins from Brazil. They foundeach other here at the creme de
la. Wow, Hollywood here they canmodel penguins. They should be
on TV. They're pretty great.really

should. That's what we're gathering here is
that the TV show? Honestly, ifyou're listening,

Erin Lundy (43:09):
and you produce and make a TV show, reach out. And
if you need help telling thempart Ashley's really good at
that. So we also have a questionwondering, are penguins
friendly? Or feisty?

I think it depends on the penguin. So a little bit
of both are like cats. Sothey'll turn around be like,
Okay, that's enough. So theanswer is it kind of depends. We
do have some that are veryaffectionate towards people that
are very used to being handled.And then we have some that do
not like to be handled andprefer a more hands off
approach.

It's good to know who is the most mischievous
penguin.

I think it's a toss up. So the two that I feel
like I have getting intoshenanigans the most are going
to be Gatz and Wally. And Ithink they're mischievious in
the way that like it feels likehaving a bunch of like toddlers
running around. Sometimes whenyou leave something out, they're
gonna come over and they'regonna touch it in order to pick
it up. Put a mat down on thefloor, they're gonna tear it up.
And I'm like, Can you just stoptouching? Five seconds? Just

(44:04):
leave it alone.

Erin Lundy (44:06):
Goodness. It is like having a bunch of children
around, isn't it?

Chaos sometimes? Thank you this kind. It is cute.

Erin Lundy (44:13):
And they're not extremely mobile. We talked a
little bit earlier about doingan animal escape drill. If a
penguin were to somehow escape,how would you recapture it?

I think we would just try to corral it a little
bit and then scoop amount up andput them back. You can

Erin Lundy (44:27):
carry them. They're usually pretty amenable to being
handled at least most of them.

Most of them are pretty used to be picked up and
carried. Just scoop them on upand carry them back.

Erin Lundy (44:35):
Welcome home.

That's awesome. Nice try.

Erin Lundy (44:39):
They're not fast on land. And that kind of leads us
to our next question.

Yeah, I think a very interesting question that
we get asked a lot is do theyhave knees?

Erin Lundy (44:48):
We get asked that a lot.

We do actually get asked

that more times than you would expect in my time
as a penguin keeper. And theanswer is yes, penguins do have
knees. If you look at an x ray.It's kind of weird. It almost
looks like They're sitting likesquatting because their knees
are up in their little body. Solook up a penguin X ray. It's
pretty crazy. But kneesconfirmed knees.

Erin Lundy (45:09):
It makes me wonder how accurate our dinosaur
depictions are sometimes. Andyou look at a penguin that looks
like a very long neck birdsquatting, you're like, Oh,
cool.

Oh, my goodness, if you look at their necks, like
the skeleton of their neck to itis way longer than you expect.
And they could really stretchthat neck out. It's funny, too.
It's pretty drastic. They'rehiding all sorts of little
secrets.

Erin Lundy (45:29):
Those little secrets. How long does it take
for we said, we've had somechicks here. How long does it
take for that baby penguin togrow fully into an adult?

So from when they hatch, usually, around 90 days,
it's kind of what I say. So thatis going up getting past the
fluffy phase, losing that babydown and learning to swim. It's
about a 90 day process.

How long does it take for a penguin egg to
hatch once it's been laid? To?

Yes, if it's gonna hatch, usually, it's in like the
38 to 42 day range is when we'llsee it hatch pretty quick.

Erin Lundy (46:05):
That is actually really fast. A penguin for
today's parents,

is that pretty quick for bird species or some

birds hatched? Like fairly quickly? I think
some of the smaller guys hatcheven faster than that, like
maybe two weeks. Yeah. And I Oh,I would have to look it up. I
feel like there was somebody Iread recently. What did like the
really big birds,

Erin Lundy (46:26):
that long hatch? Right? That took a long time,
but I would have to look it up.And they always like to eggs,
right?

They do they lay too, but they don't lay them
like one and then another it'sthey lay an egg and then four
days later they lay there secondday, do they ever both hatch.
Sometimes they do generally,only one tends to hatch or one
tends to make it if they bothhatch, depending on food
supplies, it would have to be Ithink, very experienced parents
and a lot of resources andplentiful fish out there for
them both to make it.

What happens if we are in a breeding season here
at the Aquarium where we arehaving penguin check chicks and
bird lays two eggs. And they'reboth viable.

So sometimes in that instance, if we have
another pair that maybe wasn'tsuccessful, we can do foster
eggs. So we might be able totake one of the extra eggs and
give it to another pair. A lotof times we only like the pair
sitting on one at a time becauseit lets them focus all of their
effort on just that one chickand it increases the chance of
success. And it's a little lessstressful for the parents.

To twins.

All the parents out there not.

Erin Lundy (47:27):
Twins are a lot. That's awesome.

Yeah. So sometimes we could pull the second egg and
we just let them focus on thefirst one. And we could give the
second egg to somebody else orwe just don't give it to
anybody.

Erin Lundy (47:39):
And if we have young penguins that have grown up in
our swimming, they're silver incolor, right? When they first
get that they don't, whenthey're hatched, they have the
funny brown feathers that sortof look like they have curly
hair, and they're very cute. Andthen they start getting sort of
weird looking as that falls out.But then they turn totally
silver. And that's not what wetypically expect with a penguin.
When do they get sort of thatvery tuxedos? Yeah, the tuxedos

(48:02):
usually about

a year and a half old. So they'll have their first
molt about a year and a half,and they get their black and
white tuxedos. And it's kind ofa fun process. I had a penguin
chick where both the parents hadwhat I call the bow tie mark so
they actually had a spot ontheir neck that looked like a
little bow tie. And we weresitting there anxiously
watching. I'm gonna have the bowtie we have we're like trying to
peek under the feathers thatthey're like she did have a bow

(48:27):
tie.

Erin Lundy (48:29):
I wonder genetics that's

for the African. So actually, this is a fun
African penguin Magellaniccrossover. So Magellanic
penguins have their doublebandits they have two black
bands kind of across their chestand neck. African penguins have
one and the bow tie is theremnant of that second band. Oh,
yeah. Crazy,

is crazy. I love that.

Erin Lundy (48:50):
Now we know bowtie genetics is a real thing from
the Magellanic. So

they invented the bowtie.

Erin Lundy (48:58):
Another listener wants to know What do penguins
feel like?

Oh, it's so hard to describe. They're incredibly
soft. Yeah, but also like kindof smooth and slick at the same
time. So those outer feathersare really soft and fluffy but
also slick because theyconditioned them with like a
waterproofing oil that theymake, which is crazy to it's,
you just have to come see foryourself.

Unlike anything else, right?

Yeah, it's so hard

Erin Lundy (49:24):
feeling to describe that helpful. Well, where do
they get their waterproofingfrom? Does it just secrete all
over their body,

they have a little gland kind of right on top of
the base of their tail calledthe Preen gland premium and a
lot of birds have it. So a lotof times you'll see birds when
they groom themselves, theyreach their head back towards
their tail and they'll kind ofrub their face on their tail and
it looks really weird, butgetting that oil kind of on
their beak on their face, andthen they rub their face all
over the rest of their feathersand kind of condition them and
spread that waterproofing oilall over. That's crazy. It also

(49:55):
looks like you don't have to dothat. Right?

What do you mean? Yes, don't do that.

Erin Lundy (50:00):
Yeah. Hmm, How flexible are you? That's crazy.
I have

a waterproof.

Erin Lundy (50:08):
I think my favorite thing about it is that when they
molt, you can see it

feels forbidden

to see that, so it is separate from their
cloaca.

Yeah, yeah, it is. So the cloca is like underneath
the tail and a little premium isactually on the top side. For
our

listeners who want to help penguins in the
wild. Do you have anysuggestions on things that they
can do in their day to day livesto help penguins?

I think one of the best things that we can do for
penguins is just to try to buylocal and sustainably sourced
seafood. Overfishing is one ofthe biggest problems that they
are facing out there in theocean because they are competing
against the commercial fishingindustry. And some places are
really good about regulatingthat industry. And then some
places have a little bit of aharder time regulating it. And
it's really been a challenge forpenguin. So just trying to not
be a part of the problem and tryto support people who are doing

(50:52):
the right thing and havingsustainable industries. It's
really helpful. Yeah, definitely

we'll link some resources in the show notes to
for sustainable seafood.

Erin Lundy (51:00):
We just want those penguin twins to survive. More
food, the more twins live.That's all we really want. All
right to last but not least, wehave one more question for you.

Do you have a favorite penguin? Maybe this
season,

right this season? I think that's the hardest
question.

Erin Lundy (51:18):
My main character is the main

character. Hmm. I think I really like Robbie, he's
still in my heart. He's such asweet, like well mannered little
gentleman.

Erin Lundy (51:30):
So good choice. He's

very polite. He comes up and he waits for you to
give him food and he take what'she like what he wants and he'll
walk away some of the otherpenguins sit there and they'll
pick at you if you're not fastenough, or they just eat and eat
and steal fish from one another.And Robbie's very polite and
he's just a very cute good boy.

That's a good reason to make Robbie the cover
photo for the podcast.

born to be on the cover.

Erin Lundy (51:52):
He was he's very handsome. Well, thank you
Ashley. That was probably one ofthe more fun very fun.

We learned a lot

Erin Lundy (51:59):
about penguins shenanigans here at the Aquarium
and if you guys want to come andsee the shenanigans in person,
please do they are at our JuneKeyes Magellanic penguin
habitat. You might see Ashleyout there being pecked at or
being very politely treated byRobbie when she's eating which
would be depends on the penguinon the day. And if you come in
the late summer, please do notbe alarmed when you see feathers

(52:23):
everywhere and pink pluckchickens. That is normal that is
normal. Well thank you canactually we really appreciate
having you on.

Aquarium of the Podcific is brought to you by
Aquarium of the Podcific a 501 Cthree nonprofit organization in
2023. The aquarium celebrates 25years of connecting millions of
people worldwide to the beautyand wonder of our ocean planet.
Head to aquarium of pacific.orgto learn more about our 25th
anniversary celebration. Keep upwith the aquarium on social

(52:56):
media @aquariumpacific onTikTok, Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn.

Erin Lundy (53:00):
This podcast is produced by Erin Lundy, Madeline
Walden and Scott Shaw. Our musicis by Andrew Reitsma and our
podcast art is by Brandi Kenney,special thanks to Cecile Fisher
and Anita Valles and our audiovisual and education departments
and to all of our amazingpodcast guests for taking time
out of their day to talk aboutthe important work that they do.
Pod cific wouldn't be possiblewithout the support of the

(53:22):
aquarium donors, members, guestsand supporters. Thanks for
listening!

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