A Physicist Amongst Penguins

Penguins can be addictive – once you learn a little about them you want to know more and more until, if you are lucky enough, you end up working on research to help conserve these precious birds. At least that’s what happened to me. I got involved initially using my knowledge of materials science to design better flipper bands to mark penguins. But my typical, physics, curiosity driven approach to research, as opposed to the biologists strictly hypothesis drive approach helped me find novel insights into what conservation interventions may, or may not, succeed. 

When most people think of penguins they immediately think of the cold Antarctic. It is true that several of the 18 penguin species are found in and around isolated and hard to reach areas of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic, but other species come from more accessible places (such as South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand). 
 
Penguins face many problems – one species is listed as critically endangered, four species are listed as endangered and a further four as being vulnerable to extinction. 

In this talk I will describe all 18 species of penguin, where they are found and note some interesting facts about them. However, I will mainly concentrate one species, the African penguin with which I mostly work. I will outline the major threats to the species, explain why it is now the most endangered of all penguin species and how we hope to avert it’s extinction.