"This is a pair that’s back(刚刚觅食回来). Here's a male and you can see still wet. So he just came back from the sea. And the female is, uh, dry, but you can see they get this fat chick(小企鹅) both of them were feeding it. This chick is now so fat that even though the male has just come home it’s wet. It's uh, not even begging for food. "

 

On the surface, it would seem this penguin colony is thriving. But Dee is worried. She's seen the population dropped by 22% in the past 20 years. A research data suggested that adults must swim further and further out to sea to find food for their chicks. The culprit(罪魁祸首) could be oil spills, overfishing by humans or even global warming. To find out what's threatening the colony, the movements of these busy Magellanic penguins must be monitored.

 

But all penguin researchers share a common problem. It's hard for humans to tell penguins apart. It may be hard for even penguins to tell themselves apart. They identify each other by calls. However, state-of-the-art technology can help researchers out.

 

"One of the real problems is how do you tell individuals apart. And so what we’ve been doing for the last 25 years is the traditional method of marking penguins. We kind of put a band on a penguin so this is what a band looks like. And we actually put it on the left flipper(鳍状肢), so it's little like wearing a bracelet or something like that. And so we can tell the individuals apart.

 

What we are trying to do now is sort of having to read the band, let the penguin identify themselves. And we are doing this by putting a little tiny tag in their foot. And then that’s like a bar code that you put in your dog or cats. And they walk across a magnetic grid and they tell us who they are."

 

The researchers set out mat with sensors that are able to read the microchips implanted in the penguins' feet. Covered with sand and rocks, the mats are a minor roadblock on a popular pathway to the beach.

 

"They are not so sure about the pads when they walk over them. Some of them just walk over the pads and pay no attention. Others are so curious that they spend time with their beak（嘴）, feeling up and down the pad, trying to tear the pad apart."

 

Every time a microchipped penguin crosses the mat, the computer records its movements. It's sort of like the easy path lane on the busy highway with traffic monitored electronically. Except for routine maintenance, the researchers don't even have to be around. The penguins are literally counting themselves.

 

"The most important part about that is not only can we get a night's sleep, but we don't bother the penguins at all. And we can get information we've never had before. We can know how long they are going to seek the forage(食物), how long are they staying home with their chicks. And then we can start to look at what's the effect of opening a fishery or closing a fishery on these birds."

 

"Oh,So this is Dan. That's an incubation trip going straight out. You see he is really foraging(v.觅食)".

 

Back in the office in the University of Washington, Dee analyses the tracking data.

 

(…is he wandered out…So what he wanna do is...)

 

She and her team are also developing new technology that will weigh penguins by embedding a scale under the mat that monitors their movements. This way, Dee will be able to determine how much food the penguins are consuming without touching them.

 

"Not surprisingly, just like you don't like to be picked up by a monster and weighed. Penguins don't like it either. So this way, we should be able to get their weight and not bother the birds at all".

 

These long-term research, supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society, is helping protect the Punta Tumbo colony. Oil companies have moved their shipping lanes and the government has stepped in to protect the coastal habitat they share with other species. But Dee argues the real solution is to keep entire ocean eco-systems healthy, because penguins, like so many other marine animals, migrate over vast distances.

 

（Punta Tumbo: a peninsula into the Atlantic Ocean 110 km (68 mi) south of Trelew in the Chubut Province of Argentina, where there is an important colony of penguin.）

 

"There are global marine signals. They are telling us not only what happens with oil pollution in places. They tell us about climate change. They tell us about how we are using the ocean. What's happening to our fisheries…We can get a lot of insights from other species. And so long-term studies, I think, are actually critical to be able to inform humans so we can make better use of the resources of the earth. "

 

The penguins for the most part don't seem aware computers are recording their every move, and that someone is watching over them, in the hopes of making sure their ruckus colony stays safe for generations to come. "

 

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