A Path for Penguins
When weeds prevented small penguins from reaching their homes, some scientists stepped in to help clear the way.
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This blue penguin lives on Phillip Island in southern Australia.
Has an adult ever asked you to help pull some weeds from a garden? Chores like this may sound boring, but what if weeding meant helping tiny penguins? On a small island off the coast of Australia, a weeding project has given these adorable birds a brighter future.
At only a foot tall (30 centimeters), blue penguins are the smallest of all the penguin species. They get their name from their blue-gray feathers.
Blue penguins live along the coasts of Australia and New Zealand. They like to make burrows on coastlines and islands, where they raise their chicks. Scientists realized a colony of blue penguins was in trouble when tall grasses took over a popular penguin island. These grasses were too tall for the small penguins to walk through. Since the penguins couldn’t reach their burrows, they could not have chicks.
© Courtesy of Dr. Chris Surman/University of Western Australia
Dr. Belinda Cannell and a student study the plants that exist on an island in Australia where blue penguins live and breed.
“Weeds have been shown to demolish colonies of [blue] penguins elsewhere in Australia,” said Belinda Cannell, a biologist who studies penguins.
Cannell and other scientists got to work weeding the island. They created paths through the tall grasses so that the penguins could reach their burrows. When the researchers went back to the island a few years later, they discovered that the penguins were using the paths and creating more burrows. For these small penguins, a simple weeding program made a huge difference.
© Goddard_Photography—iStock/Getty Images
This pair of blue penguins live on an island off the coast of Australia.
