Little penguins waddle on their way home in Phillip Island, Australia. Image: screengrab from YouTube/Phillip Island Nature Parks
People from all over the world can now watch thousands of penguins march home every night via livestreams held by the Phillip Island Nature Parks.
The said Australia-based, non-profit conservation organization will be giving the world a chance to see the adorable “Penguin Parade”, normally observed by tourists in person, as they are forced to go online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The “Penguin Parade” can be viewed via the organization’s Facebook page and YouTube channel starting at 4:00 p.m. Manila time (6 p.m. in Australian Eastern Standard Time) every day starting today, Aug. 25.
Through “Live Penguin TV”, the Phillip Island Nature Parks promises to capture the event in real-time while also educating viewers about the little creatures and their habits.
A representative from the organization, who introduced herself as Sky, noted in their first-ever livestream that they look after a colony of around 32,000 penguins on the island.
“We make sure that, hopefully, there will be penguins for generations to come and that in the future, we’ll be able to have lots of people back again here at the Penguin Parade,” Sky said.
Referring to the pandemic, Sky said that even if the organization has not been able to accommodate people who would like to visit their sites, Phillip Island Nature Parks has sill been very busy with their conservation work.
For one, the organization has been looking after the koalas displaced by the devastating bushfires earlier this year. They have also been planting trees and doing other conservation efforts for the island’s wildlife.
The Little Penguin Parade
Little penguins preening. Image: screengrab from YouTube/Phillip Island Nature Parks
The penguins, who spend whole days or even a month at sea, first find each other by doing “hucking noises” and form into groups called rafts before they emerge from the waters.
While these rafts may look like mere disturbances and in the sea, the cute, tiny penguins are sure a sight to behold once they simultaneously arrive at the beach and march together.
These small creatures are literally called “Little Penguins” as they are the smallest penguin species in the world, each one standing at about 33 centimeters tall and weighing around only 1 kilogram. They are also the only species to have blue feathers instead of black.
The said parade happens at night because the penguins intentionally wait until sunset before they get out of the water to avoid predators, according to Sky. Throughout the livestream, viewers were able to witness several penguin rafts arrive at the beach and adorably waddle on their way home.
Sky also shared that the penguins go home to either feed their chicks or to take their turn to look after the eggs, noting, “penguins do believe in equality; we got male and female penguins [look] after the eggs.” They might also be returning home to prepare their nests for the upcoming breeding season, she added.
As cute as these guys are, however, people were warned that little penguins are not good pets for several reasons: they bite or peck, and they have “high-velocity poo,” meaning they can “shoot their poo all over the place.”
People, on the other hand, can symbolically adopt penguins — not by taking them home, but by helping the organization take care of them through the Penguin Foundation. JB
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