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Royal Penguins
 | Picture:Royal Penguins on Macquarie Island. 18 Feb 1993.
Royal Penguins (Eudyptes schlegeli)
Royal penguins exist in a precarious state because they breed only on the Australian (Tasmanian) sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island. They are thus very open to natural disasters, such as extreme weather or human disasters, such as oil spills. In fact they were in danger of extinction at the beginning of the 20th century because of human greed for the commercial value of their oil.
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Macquarie Island Colony
 | Picture:Penguin Colony on Macquarie Island with Digesters used to Boil Penguins for Oil. 17 Feb 1993.
They are one of several species of crested penguins found on sub-Antarctic islands and are relatives of the rockhopper and macaroni penguins, though they look quite different. About 900,000 pairs breed on Macquarie Island, the largest colony of 500,000 being at Hurd Point. |
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White Fronts & Orange Crests
 | Picture:Royal Penguins are Plump, Placid and Very Cute Looking. Macquarie Island. 18 Feb 1993.
They have white fronts and the white extends much higher than on the rockhoppers or macaronis, up to and sometimes above their eyes though there may be a dark band around their neck. They look stockier and plumper than the other two species and have a very endearing appearance. |
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A Placid Nature
 | Picture:Royal Penguins Showing the Orange Crests Across their Foreheads. Macquarie Island. 18 Feb 1993.
They are placid and tame which didn’t help when they were being slaughtered in their thousands. Their orangey-yellow crest feathers start across the top of their bill and extend each side of the head above the eyes. Their beaks are dark red and their feet pink. They are about 23inches (70cm) tall and weigh about 8-9lb. |
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Rookeries in the Tussock Grass
 | Picture:Royal Penguins Breed in the Tussock Grass and in Clearings their Constant Use has Caused. Macquarie Island. 18 Feb 1993.
The breeding season starts in late September when the males return to claim their nest sites. The female arrives in early October and lays eggs in mid to late October with chicks hatching 30 days later. Two different sized eggs are laid the first, the smaller one usually being discarded. |
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Various Stages of Moult
 | Picture:Royal Penguins Patiently Waiting for the Moult to End.Macquarie Island. 18 Feb 1993.
Eggs are incubated for 35 days, both parents taking turns, each incubation turn lasting up to 2 weeks. During incubation penguins can swim 600km in 3 weeks. The male broods and guards the chick for 3-4 weeks until the chicks are large enough to go into crèches for protection after which, from mid January, both parents feed at sea for 3 days or so at a time. |
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Waiting to Return to Sea
 | Picture:Royal Penguins Waiting Patiently to go Back to Sea.Macquarie Island.18 Feb 1993.
They seek food at depths of 50 to 150 ft, diving for about 2 mins and can swim at 20mph. They take mostly krill with some fish and squid. Of these the diet proportions are eupausiids 26%, myctophid fish 52%, the rest squid and other crustaceans. The diet of course will vary according to the availability of prey.They feed the chicks with partially digested food from their stomachs |
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Moulting Feathers Galore
 | Picture:A Royal Penguin in the Middle of Moulting. Macquarie Island. 18 feb 1993.
After two months or so, in February, when the chicks are fully fledged the parents return to sea to fatten for the moult which begins in mid march. By May the colony is empty as the penguins have gone back to sea. Young adults return to the colony to breed after 6 years. Individuals are known to interbreed with macaronis. |
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Moulting is not Fun
 | Picture:Royal Penguins Preening and Enduring the Moult. Macquarie Island.18 Feb 1993.
When we saw the royals they were tame an unafraid of humans which is amazing in view of the cruel treatment their ancestors had experienced. |
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A Penguin Auschwitz
 | Picture:Joseph Hatch's Digesters: Tanks for Boiling Penguins and Other Species for their Oil.Macquarie Island.18 Feb 1993
The most heinous and shocking time in the royals’ history was the late 19th and early 20th Century when they were killed on a commercial scale for the oil contained in their plump little bodies. 150,000 were slaughtered each year for the paltry ½ litre of oil each of their poor little bodies could yield. At Nugget Point we saw the rusting remains of “digesters”, huge tanks into which the little bodies were thrust. 2000 penguins were put through these digesters each day which yielded 14 casks of oil with 40 gallons in each cask. The oil was of good quality and used for soap making and leather dressing. |
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Royals & Kings in the Pot
 | Picture:Royal Penguins with Some of their Bigger Neighbours, the King Penguins, also Killed for their Oil.Macquarie Island 18 Feb 1993
Of course everything went into these digesters till there were none left, elephant seals, king penguins anything at all. They could all so easily have joined the dodo, great auk and many others lost forever. It was only because the industry was becoming less profitable as the penguins were getting fewer and fewer and there was an outcry against this vile trade that it was stopped. This was largely due to the efforts of Yorkshire born Australian explorer Sir Douglas Mawson. The poor little things were herded up long planks to the digesters and made to jump into the boiling water or clubbed on the head and kicked in. When the vat was full the lid was put on and the superheated steam was turned on. It was not until February 1920 that this licence to kill was cancelled. |
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Too Special to Kill
 | Picture:Moulting Royal Penguins on Macquarie Island.18 Feb 1993
The awful thing is that its all still going on today: culling of badgers, cormorants and seals in England, killing of seals in Canada, shooting of swallows in Malta during their northward migration, etc etc etc.
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