Specifications

1.4. PROJECT BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION
1.4 Project Background and Justification
Once a year (between November and December), penguins come to Robben
Island
1
to moult. They move in groups numbering in the hundreds around
the beaches (as shown in Figure 1.1), with the entire colony numbering in
the thousands. Robben Island is also a nesting home for many of these birds.
Nests are established off the beach, under trees and shrubs as shown in Figure
1.2. When moving from their nests to the water to go fishing, they tend to
walk in groups of about half a dozen. Furthermore, they follow the same
paths every time.
Figure 1.1: Penguins’ moulting season on Robbe n Island
sees many birds return to the island. Picture courtesy [2].
In order to improve our understanding of penguin movements, survival
rates and nesting habits – and thus improve avian conservation – penguins
must be marked so that individuals may be identified. This has traditionally
been achieved through the use of steel bands around the tops of their flippers
as shown in Figure 1.3. Identifying these birds then requires a human watcher
to manually read the stamp-printed numbers (which are difficult to see in the
field). During moulting season, this becomes all but impossible because of the
vast numbers of birds. In recent times, it has also been suggested that these
bands may adversely affect the birds’ swimming capabilities by disturbing
the hydrodynamic flow across their flippers [2]. A better method of marking
the penguins is required.
1
A small island famous for its high security prison in the bay of Cape Town, South
Africa.
4