Detroit Zoo celebrates World Penguin Day with wild penguin conservation work

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25-04-2025

April 25 is World Penguin Day, and the Detroit Zoo is celebrating an ongoing study benefiting wild penguins.
Since 2013, the Detroit Zoo has partnered with Falklands Conservation, a nature organization based in the Falkland Islands that monitors seabird and other wildlife populations. As part of their seabird program, Detroit Zoo staff helped count the number of penguins around the region. Staff traveled to various, far-flung islands. Drones were purchased so that workers could do aerial surveys and count that way, saving great time and effort.
During that partnership, Falkland Conservation noticed alarming population declines.
'All seabird populations are declining,' said Ann Duncan, Associate Vice President of Life Sciences for the Detroit Zoological Society (DZS). 'The animals that are near to the polar areas of the world are being affected quite a bit by climate change, so they were concerned about the things that might be causing these decreases – particularly the impact petroleum activity in the area might have.'
The DZS' bird curator at the time reached out to the animal health team, led by Duncan. In order to create a study that would explore those impacts, Duncan led a small team to the Falklands in 2018, 2019 and 2024, going each time in autumn, which is nesting season. Blood samples and toxicology testing were done to look for evidence of an immune symptom response to various diseases, a process called serology.
'We also look for the pathogens themselves,' said Duncan, 'using PCR and looking for the DNA of the types of pathogens that we think would impact penguins in the wild. It's a big effort. Traveling to the Falklands is challenging; it takes over two days to get there, and we ship our supplies ahead of time. We have to keep the samples cold when we transport them back from the Falklands, so we travel with a great, big dry shipping liquid nitrogen tank that maintains a really cold temperature inside and keeps the samples preserved.'
Duncan said the exploration of the samples is ongoing.
'What we do know,' she said, 'is that high path avian influenza is a global concern and has had an impact on some marine mammals in the area north of the Falklands, so we're taking a closer look at that. We see evidence of other diseases, but for the most part, the penguins that we've looked at have been healthy, and that's a good thing to see.
'However, there had been one site where we generally sample the penguins, that the landowner had noticed the number of rock hopper penguins in that colony had decreased by a lot. They didn't want us to go into that colony to collect samples, because they're concerned. There are some areas where the flock sizes are still good, and other areas where the flock sizes are not good, so this kind of work, looking at what's impacting these animals, is important to understanding them.'
One thing the study allowed them to do was compare and contrast samples from penguins that were far away from humans and petroleum with populations that were closer to those influences.
'There are so many pressures on wild populations,' said Duncan. 'Some of them are climate, some of them are man-made things like the petroleum industry in the area. One of the reasons why Falklands Conservation wanted to partner with us is because it may be possible to learn if there are certain contaminants in the environment, and measures that could be taken to change things, or policies that could be written that could change the way things are done. If they could prove that there was an impact coming from petroleum shipping or from oil spills or other things going on in the area, they might be able to influence and avoid some of those things moving forward. That's the ultimate goal.'
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Duncan emphasized that science is important, and that every citizen is capable of helping with conservation.
'Science is real,' she said. 'It is evidence-based. It's performed by scientists who are trained, and it can spark and ignite an interest in the people who live in the Detroit area, understanding more about the ways that animal populations are being impacted globally, and looking for ways that they can make a difference. And that can be financial support to an organization that's doing work. It can be just learning more and talking about it, and igniting that spark in other people. It can be visiting the zoo, because when you visit the zoo, your financial support of admission does go toward our conservation programs. That's partly how we fund this.
'And it can be voting. It can be getting active and influencing legislation here in the United States that impacts things like climate change, impacts things like clean water, impacts things that are affecting wildlife everywhere, including in Michigan, in our area, in our footprint. All of those things are interwoven.'
David Dimitrie, DZS Director of Conservation, said the work being done here at the Detroit Zoo results in the zoo being able to help animals in the wild.
'By having our animals at the Detroit Zoo,' he said, 'and having our team who are managing them and handling them and taking care of them day in and day out, and having Dr. Ann's team, with their knowledge, we are able to really provide an important health benefit to our partners in the field, and that expertise that I think can help leverage and elevate the conservation work that it happening.
'And so, what we're doing at the Zoo is allowing us to then go out into the field and also help with these important conversation projects. It's really exciting to have the animals here at the zoo, but also to have those skill sets that we can bring back out into the field.'
Duncan agreed.
'There's actually a viral disease that is to some extent impacting cat populations in managed care at other zoos and aquariums right now,' she said. 'One of the things we're going to do is test the animals in the wild to understand if this is also impacting wild penguins. That work can also help us inform the care of our animals that live here at the Detroit Zoo, so it does go both ways.'
Dimitrie emphasized that the Zoo is proud to be able to add support to projects like this.
'We have a really important skill set and a suite of scientific expertise,' said Dimitrie. 'We have Dr. Ann and her team from the vet and the health side of things. We have our bird team going down as well, and we have our penguins here at the Detroit Zoo. But we're also really focused on their conservation in the field, as well. That baseline data can really help us begin to untangle these different potential threats that the wildlife are facing down in the Falklands.
'But, at the same time, I think one of our roles is to always be thinking and looking ahead to the future and to the next potential conservation challenge that's going to be facing these habitats and these animals down there. Having this relationship and this work already established there can really help us be champions and leaders for helping to guide what the future of conservation may look like.'
To learn more or support the Detroit Zoo's conservation efforts, visit detroitzoo.com. To learn more about Falklands Conservation, visit falklandsconservation.com.
Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at [e-mail].
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Zoo celebrates World Penguin Day with conservation work