B-1034: 20+ years of interactions with Little Penguins

More about this event

Detail daily and annual cycle, and how the latter may affect interpretation of necropsies or treatment of injury/illness. How to sex penguins externally. Describe how penguins swim - importance of well-conditioned feathers, body parts used, foraging behavior. Penguin vision-visual predators, binocular vision, emmetropic in air. Give examples of injuries/illnesses/odd behaviours observed.

Learning Objectives

Participants will understand: 
1. Daily and annual cycle of penguins; 
2. Penguin biology; 
3. Penguin behaviour; and, 
4. Common health/disease issues in wild penguin populations. 

About the speaker: Belinda Cannell has dedicated more than 20 years researching the ecology of Little Penguins in Western Australia, following completion of her PhD (at Monash University, Victoria) in which she studied the foraging behaviour of wild Little Penguins held in captivity.  During her PhD she not only conducted her research, but was also responsible for the penguins’ day-to-day care and safe return to their colony. Over these decades she has radio tracked, micro-chipped, tagged, caught, counted, sampled and analysed hundreds of Little Penguins across some 10 separate projects in several WA locations.