Foraging of royal penguins and its relationship to the Antarctic Polar Frontal Zone

The factors that control the number of animals in a population are often difficult to understand. However, this basic understanding is central to managing those populations and assessing how they might respond to human induced pressures. For animals living in the Antarctic, like penguins, the marine environment that they depend on for food can vary due to natural events such as El Nino, and potentially due to human induced changes such as global warming. This study uses modern computer technology to track Royal penguins at sea and to monitor their time on land. By relating where the birds go to feed, what they feed on, and how successfully they catch their food to the survival rates of their chicks, this study will describe how fluctuations in a major Antarctic oceanographic feature (the Antarctic Polar Front) can influence the size of the Royal penguin population at Macquarie Island.

Information on breeding success, diet and foraging success were collected each year between 1997-2001. Diving behaviour and at-sea movements were also quantified between 1997 and 1999.

These data will also be available in the ARGOS satellite tracking database.

Attached to this metadata record are ARGOS tracking data collected by Cindy Hull between 1994 and 2000. The tracking data have been collected from 19 different royal penguins. The download file contains a csv file with tracking data.