Life as a penguin-ologist!
Penguinologist and conservationist Dr Antje Steinfurth is on a mission to protect endangered penguins in the most remote corners of the world
With their funny little waddle and their charming personalities, it’s hard not to fall in love with penguins. But for one conservationist, Dr Antje Steinfurth, her passion for penguins has led her to the most inhospitable parts of the world and all kinds of adventures in her work as a penguinologist. From hanging off nearvertical cliffs, to sleeping on lava, wading through thigh-deep snow to spending weeks crawling on all fours through penguin poo, Antje often risks life, limb (and sanity) for the sake of conserving the most endangered species of penguins around. But, as a passionate nature lover who’s determined to help these animals thrive, she wouldn’t have it any other way. Having trained in marine biology in her native Germany, Antje first got involved with penguins when she met Dr Rory Wilson, widely known as the guru in penguinology. “It sounds a bit cheesy but as soon as Rory started talking about penguins, I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life,” she says. “I’d worked with lots of other marine animals before and no doubt they are all fascinating, but penguins just got me hooked. Everyone has this idea that
penguins are clumsy and look comical, but when you watch them in the sea diving around, they’re so graceful. It’s like they’re flying underwater – their ability and manoeuvres are mind-blowing.” While it’s easy to think penguin species are doing fine when you see pictures of vast colonies of them marching across South Georgia or in the Antarctic, Antje explains that this isn’t actually the case. In fact more than half of the world’s penguin species are sliding towards extinction. “There are 18 species of penguins and at the moment ten of those are classified as either vulnerable or endangered. Each species faces different threats but generally speaking things such as pollution and fishing, oil spills, the introduction of new predators and climate change, threaten numbers.” Having started researching the endangered Galapagos penguin, more recently Antje has been focusing on the northern rockhopper penguin, whose population has nosedived by a staggering 90 per cent in the last century. The northern rockhoppers are not only funny-looking fellas with their spiky hairdos and charming expressions, they’re also only found in two incredibly hard-to-reach areas – 15 per cent of the population are in the south Indian ocean, the rest are in the British overseas territory, the Tristan da Cunha archipelago and Gough island. This group of remote volcanic islands is in the south Atlantic Ocean and is home to fewer than 300 people. For the past five years, Antje has made the trek out to Tristan and its nearby islands, carrying out research into northern rockhoppers for the RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science. “Our work is about trying to put our finger on what’s causing their decline and find out more about the penguin’s behaviour so we know how best to help. We do a lot of tracking with GPS devices attached to their backs and we’ve just started a survival study involving microchipping to study their breeding success and survival rate. But of course, to microchip them and attach GPS devices we first have to catch the penguins,” Antje says. But how on earth do you catch a penguin? “It’s quite a challenge,” Antje laughs. “Obviously, we only catch them when absolutely necessary. To do so, you have to sneak up behind them to avoid eye contact and very quickly grab them. I have to say that in that moment they’re not quite the fluffy and cute creatures they look in pictures. Penguins can have a really nasty bite – and the scars on my hands can prove it!” Catching these seabirds isn’t the only challenge Antje faces out in Tristan. For most of the time she works on nearby Nightingale island which has no human inhabitants and no fresh water, meaning Antje and her assistant have to stockpile three months’ worth of food and survive without any phone signal or internet throughout that time. She’s spent three birthdays there too, with birthday bread instead of cake! Then there’s the fact the island is covered in very dense vegetation of 6ft high grass. No problem if you’re a penguin, but as a human the only way to cross the grass is by getting down on all fours and crawling in the wind and rain. How does she cope with such difficult conditions? “What can I say? Yes the fieldwork can be quite gruelling and sometimes I think, I am not sure I can do this today, but then I truly love what I am doing and truth be told, I am at my happiest when I am in the islands. My favourite time is in the evening when the sun is going down and millions of birds are flying in. It’s beyond anything else I’ve ever experienced. I feel so privileged and fortunate to do this work and want to raise awareness of and help these amazing animals.”
If you’d like to make a donation to support research on penguins visit https://penguin. birdlife.org To find out more about the rsPb’s Centre for Conservation science call 01767 680551 or visit www.rspb.org.uk/science
‘It’s quite a challenge trying to catch a penguin. You only do so when it’s absolutely necessary!’