The Last Word On Nothing

For the past month or so I have been in Argentina at Punta Tombo, a large colony of Magellanic penguins. Punta Tombo is not without its pleasures–how could one fail to enjoy spending hours a day with penguins?–but hanging over everything we do is the grim fact that the colony is declining. Since 1987, when researchers started to keep track, the number of active nests has decreased by about 60%.

It might be tempting then to think the Magellanic penguin is doomed. In fact it is not, or does not seem to be. Colonies north of Punta Tombo are growing at astonishing rates. Colonies south of Punta Tombo appear to be stable. It is just Punta Tombo and a few nearby smaller colonies–Punta Clara, Cabo Dos Bahias, others–that are experiencing such steady drops. The working hypothesis for these drops is that when penguins started to breed at Punta Tombo in the early 1900s, they were close to fish at a crucial time of year, when they have to feed their chicks. Now, owing to climate change or human fisheries or some combination of those factors or something else, the fish are no longer quite so close to Punta Tombo.

Sometimes when I walk back to our field house at the end of the day, I wonder why the penguins here don’t just leave and go to one of those colonies that is doing better. It’s not like they would have to travel so very far; and they’re quite good at swimming.

I was on one such walk when I came upon this fellow standing outside his nest. He happened to have a flipper band, so I know a little more about him than I do about the average penguin. I know, for instance, that he is twenty-one years of age. I know he hatched at Punta Tombo and came back to breed when he was four years of age. (Penguins have a high degree of site fidelity.) I know he had a mate for a few years and raised some chicks with her, but then she moved on or died. I know that since then he has been alone. Given how male-biased the sex ratio is at Punta Tombo, I know he will most likely never have a mate again.

I dropped down to my knees and took a few pictures of him. He opened his eyes a touch and gave me the once over before closing them again. The wind blew and he rocked a little. He looked perfectly contented, while all around him other penguins carried on. I left him to it. No matter the vagaries and uncertainties of the world, every year he comes back to his little patch of earth. This is his home place. This is what he knows, and for him it is enough.