Saint Louis Zoo keeper helps wildlife in Peru

The Humboldt Penguin is found only along the rugged Pacific coast of Peru and Chile. Although most people think of penguins as cold weather birds, most live in temperate or even tropical habitats. The Humboldt penguin lives where one of the earth's driest deserts meets one of the coldest ocean currents.

The Saint Louis Zoo and its partners are doing health assessments and censusing of Humboldt penguins through the Zoo's WildCare Institute Center for Conservation in Punta San Juan, Peru. Saint Louis Zoo staff, including bird keeper Cyndie shown in this video, have participated in these projects.

In Punta San Juan, the continental shelf comes very close to the coast line creating an upwelling of cold nutrient rich water which provide a fertile environment for the Anchoveta, the primary food source of the penguin and many other sea birds and marine mammals. For this reason the Humboldt penguin and many other sea birds have for centuries chosen Punta San Juan as a breeding site. This has produced some of the most fertile guano fields in the world. The guano also provides a soft substrate for the Humboldt penguins to dig their nesting burrows. For this reason approximately one half of the entire Peruvian Humboldt penguin population calls Punta San Juan home.

Due to uncontrolled commercial fishing and guano harvesting for use as fertilizer, the Humboldt penguin population has declined significantly in the past 20 -- 30 years. Today the Humboldt penguin is listed as "Vulnerable to Extinction" by the Red List of the IUCN.

In summer 2012, the Zoo and its partners completed Punta San Juan's third sustainable guano harvest since 2001.

Read more about Humboldt penguin conservation at
http://www.stlzoo.org/conservation/wildcare-institute/humboldtpenguinsinperu/

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