Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Summer Baby Boom
Juvenile penguins back on exhibit, joined by young cuttlefish and snowy plover chicks
Something is in the water in various exhibits at the Monterey Bay Aquarium this summer.
Dapper juvenile penguins are now back on exhibit, joined by several young cuttlefish and a few feathered friends have recently hatched behind-the-scenes.
On Saturday, January 8 the aquarium’s first-ever African blackfooted penguin chick hatched in the award-winning “Splash Zone: Ocean Homes” family gallery.
Soon after another penguin chick hatched and both males were moved behind-the-scenes to be hand raised by aviculturists. Beginning June 1 the two males – Pebble and Tola (names chosen by the public) – were introduced back to the penguin exhibit, joining the colony of 18 other blackfooted penguins.
Visitors can keep up with the chicks’ on the aquarium’s website (www.montereybayaquarium.org ), YouTube channel (YouTube.com/montereybayaquarium ), Sea Notes blog (seanotesblog.org ) and through its Facebook fan page (www.facebook.com/montereybayaquarium ).
That’s only the beginning of the baby boom this year at the aquarium!
Behind-the-scenes pharaoh cuttlefish laid eggs that are being cared for and will be integrated into the Splash Zone exhibit soon.
When they hatch cuttlefish are about the size of a pea, and can grow to be 14 inches in length.
On exhibit now are 16, three-month-old cuttlefish (a couple of inches in length) that came to the aquarium from another facility.
Cuttlefish are a visitor favorite—they can hover like submarines, thanks to a porous internal shell called a cuttlebone that’s divided into small sections.
By varying the amount of gas and liquid filling these compartments, they control their buoyancy and their position in the water.
The aquarium also recently had its first snowy plover chicks of the season hatch behind-the-scenes.
Each year snowy plover birds in distress and eggs that have been abandoned are often brought to the aquarium – one of the main rehabilitation sites for shorebirds in Monterey County.
In the wild, Western snowy plovers (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) are a federally threatened species, largely because of destruction of their beach and dunes habitat for development and recreation. Once on-site sick and injured birds are treated and eggs are transferred to an incubator.
If all goes well, an egg will hatch about 35 days after it’s laid. Newly hatched chicks are often paired with the female snowy plover from the aquarium’s Sandy Shore Aviary exhibit for parental care.
The aquarium’s goal is to release the chicks to the wild, but the baby birds can’t fly the coop until they satisfy a lengthy checklist, including wariness of humans, a minimum weight of 30 grams (adults weigh about 40 grams and are 6-7 inches long), the ability to fly, and the savvy to find food on their own.
A healthy chick can be ready for release after about a month. Since the aquarium’s plover recovery program began in 2000, 53 chicks have been raised, including 34 hatched from eggs. In all, 58 snowy plovers of all ages have been banded and released from the aquarium. Visit the aquarium’s live aviary web cam to visit snowy plovers and other shorebirds.
The mission of the nonprofit Monterey Bay Aquarium is to inspire conservation of the oceans. To learn more, visit www.montereybayaquarium.org
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