Penguin Watch Talk

Is it important to tag all "other" species of animals alongise the penguins?

  • Xenia_Chr by Xenia_Chr

    I have noticed during this project that there aren't sufficient tags for "other" animals that ocassionally share the same spaces as penguins' nest.

    An example of this would be the Imperial Shag (Phalacrocorax atriceps) as seen in picture APZ000a915 (date taken 2015-01-17 at 4:00:00 PM).

    Is it important that these get classified and noted?

    Posted

  • AvastMH by AvastMH moderator

    Hello Xenia_Chr 😃

    We asked the scientists about this apparent marking anomally way back in the early months of the project. The sheathbill, skua and petrel are the main egg or chick predators. So we certainly need to know about them. It's useful to know about seals and the Cormorants because they indicate the general sustenance available within a reasonable swim of the site So it was agreed that we should pop an 'other' mark on it, but not specify the animal.

    Seals will predate penguins, true, but they also eat fish. Some of our pictures are apparently a long way from the penguins and little detail can be seen. Some of these are called 'foraging cameras'. The main purpose of these pictures is to record how long the penguins are out feeding, indicating the health of the local seas for the food chain. Although you see seals there and mark them, the timing of feeding trips is actually the purpose of the picture. Seals will eat some penguins, but it's poor seas that make their fishing trips so long.

    Please do check through FAQ6 which has some more/confirmatory information: https://talk.penguinwatch.org/#/boards/BPZ0000007/discussions/DPZ0000qla

    I hope that this explains the situation, but if you would like to know more please do ask 😃

    Warm pebbles,
    Joan (AvastMH), O0o0Oo0O0

    Posted