EMPEROR PENGUINS FOREWORD
MUNCHKINS OF ANTARCTICA:
The Emperor Penguins
by
RICHARD KERRY HOLTZIN
© 2020
– Apsley Cherry-Garrard
HUP, HUP, HUP
(Foreword. . .March!)
Bundle up, readers! Where this chilly novel is headed is the true land down under and well below the 60º Parallel. The coordinates confirm as much: 82.8628° S, 135.0000° E. Hence, the fifth-largest continent, ANTARCTICA. As the subtitle states, this fable is based on a colony of Emperor Penguins but also a factual account of what’s happening in their homeland. Thus, real science that tells another story about an unprecedented polar meltdown phase some fifty years in the making and continuing without abatement. For a mixed cadre of scientists monitoring the devastation of enormous ice shelves and melting glaciers, the adjective that best describes their sentiment and concern is “alarming.” The focus of the narrative also entails all mammals, avians, and marine life but mainly depicts a sobering account of an ongoing global warming phenomenon of a colony of Emperor Penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri).
Not only is Antarctica facing a critical ice shelf meltdown, as well as other icy citadels and landmarks facing similar conditions there a similar climatic forecast also affects the Arctic. For those who are interested in more details based on science and research, this supplemental information follows at the end of the novel, including the more devastating and eventual outcome for all lifeforms: terrestrial, aquatic, and avian. With this bad news mentioned, let’s get started on the upcoming adventure. The Emperors of Antarctica are arriving near the continent’s ice sheet and their short summer feeding cycle is now at an end. So begins the most important season––autumn. Accordingly, the featured colony in this fable assembles and prepares to make an epic long march across the ice sheet to their regional rookery where all the colony members were born. This time-honored tradition is demanding as it is purposeful given what will soon begin once various clans from the colony muster at the rookery. Soon thereafter, so begins the mating and ritual cycle, by which all else will follow. Thus, the newest member of the colony is born, just one penguin chick progeny to a family. As will soon be explained, the census of the colony will either augment or diminish, depending on whose egg survives during the longest and worst weather imaginable on the planet. The mating partners will also be separated for months until the females return to their mates in the spring.
I hope you will enjoy reading and learning about these peerless flightless avians. Given their genetics, conventions, devotion to duty to their offspring, as well as how the penguins spend nine months out of the year at the rookery preparing for the much shorter summer hunting and feeding season, the annual migrations are laudable in all respects. Presented with this boastful declaration, Emperor Penguins are truly like no other penguin species.
One more piece of information to pass along is some of the science and facts are mentioned in the main part of the text. Thus, footnotes that are indented and italicized. Therefore, optional reading for those who want to learn and know more about such subject matter. The reader can also bypass these passages and continue with the narrative.
Again, bundle up because it’s very, very cold where this entire story takes place.
Richard Kerry Holtzin
Flagstaff, AZ
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ORIENTEERING
(A Factual Geographic Reference)
At the end of the austral summer, scores of Emperor Penguin colonies depart their traditional and respective territorial waters and head inland for an arduous footslog across the icy mantle, headed to a variety of rookeries. At this time of year, the short hunting and feeding season is over. So begins a new season and return to the homeland for nearly an estimated half-million Aptenodytes forsteri, the tallest and heaviest of all penguin species endemic to the planet’s fifth-largest continent. With an estimated and current fifty to sixty breeding sites and maintaining an average sixty miles between colony rookeries, it is further estimated there are nearly 280,000 breeding pairs of the imposing Emperors of Antarctica. (2020 census figures).
The featured colony of penguins in this fable start their annual overland pilgrimage relatively close to the McMurdo Sound region: 77.5000° S, 165.0000° E on the western shoreline of Ross Island. Leaving the Southern Ocean’s waters just beyond the Ross Sea, numerous pods from this region’s clan take a few days swimming through openings in the slushy sea ice––the pack ice––that leads to the mainland. Thus, Antarctica’s faux ice shield with an estimated thickness of some two miles whose original landscape foundation was once entirely devoid of ice. Where the floating and fractured ice sheet begins is also where the story’s narrative begins and introduces Aurora and Cetus who are two of the featured principals.
Once all the penguin pods are mustered on the continent, they form a more or less askew queue and prepare to disembark, marching either single-file or in pairs headed inland. Their orderly and disciplined dark-colored swath set against the gleaming all-white backdrop may stretch some five miles from the first to last penguin in a seeming parade, sometimes chatty at other times taciturn. Another apt description for this annual long march falls under the conventional three-D aspects of Emperor Penguin genetics and conventions: disciplined, determined, and diligent. In other words, no penguin in these annual congregations ever misses the autumnal trek to the rookery where each was born and raised. As far as the distance traveled to where they’re going, most colony locations were founded thousands of years ago, averaging some seventy miles from the ocean to the staging areas.
In light of this genetic tradition, the pods separated and departed the Southern Ocean a few days ago. Migrating to the Ross Sea, the workout is necessary, in that the penguins have to get through the pack ice (aka “sea ice”) before its floating platform freezes solid in its entirety. Thus, a serrated icy landscape averaging 3 feet thick (.9 m). Already, the expansive sea ice thickens by the hour, extending farther out from the continent.
By now, the faster swimmers are already waiting at the staging area. It follows how these speedsters are out of danger. Once all the pods are mobilized, they will depart en masse in a day or two. Marching non-stop for about a week, other clanners from different sectors will also converge on the homeland rookery, and usually all colony members arriving on the same day.
As mentioned, the Ross Sea is almost frozen solid, which Aurora thinks is puzzling. It follows how most of the inbound penguins will be challenged and some will be delayed getting where they need to go in an opportune fashion. In other words, forced to find a way through the labyrinthian pack ice. It follows how maneuvering through slushy water and ice floes is both tricky and strenuous. Moreover, many penguins are caught off-guard because the nearly solid ice close to the continent is highly unusual.
Preparing to be land dwellers for part of the next nine months, the penguins mentally prepare for an entirely different regimen that will take time to adjust to––bipedal mobility. Due to their bloated bodies from nearly non-stop feeding over three months, they must acclimate fairly quickly to the persuasive force of gravity. Initially, some clanners will mimic the proverbial drunken sailor when walking and may take a day or two to regain their sea legs (in this case, coordinated balance).
Lest it goes unsaid, transiting to the staging sector where the continental ice sheet begins, the past few days were indeed tiresome and the penguins had to rest on the pack ice before continuing the onerous swim and walk exercise. Correspondingly, the aquatic lifestyle of these seabirds will soon change to a terrestrial routine once arriving at the rookery.
Considering what the penguins have enjoyed eating over the past few months, the next phase of annual and adjusting life cycle will be the most exacting in every aspect, and, for some, also lethal because every penguin will be tested to its limits, especially those who mate and will raise offspring.
From their aquatic activity to adapting to existence on a solid icy surface, so ends one way of life as another is about to begin. This time-honored tradition began some forty million years ago for their species, starting from relatively smaller stature avians that could fly and a changing evolution and adaption to so-called flightless birds. The imminent saga of what lies ahead is simply what it is, yet this regional clan, like all the other clans making up the whole of the colony, are eager (and some are noticeably antsy) to get underway. Despite the fact the Emperors enjoy socialization, it’s this upcoming arduous trek that stands between their species and tradition, as well as the upcoming opportunity to get back to doing just that––socializing. Arguably, for the next nine months, every day will be demanding in one way or the other. There will also be timely treks at select intervals from the rookery to the ocean and back to the rookery. These winter and spring sorties will be more difficult due to the added mileage once the ice sheet expands over the frozen water. Thus, no openings. Factor in how the mating cycle and parenting jaunts are especially perilous because the adults will have had nothing to eat since the summer feeding frenzy. Consequently, their exceedingly long fasting takes its toll on their bodies, especially the elderly and enfeebled penguins. As will be explained further along in the story, the male parents will be the most severely tested and will go without anything to eat for some four months; also, forced to remain at the rookery during the worst weather imaginable.
First things first, however––waiting and hanging out on short for all the clanners to show up. All the clanners will be assembled before the trudge to the rookery begins. At this time of year, for those inbound penguins headed to the ice sheet, many will be ambushed and killed by pursuing predators that are also en route to the staging area. Fortunately, the majority of the penguins will get through the literal dragnet, which, so far, amounts to a couple of hundred penguins adjacent to the shore and a thousand others still navigating through the meandering pack ice passage. These remaining inbound penguins are typically engaged and harassed by shadowing predators for most of the way. This lurking presence also represents an opportune appearance when all the penguins are in the water and forced to swim the gauntlet with scores of opportunistic apex adversaries. Namely, killer whales, more commonly known as orcas (Orcinus orca), and the second-largest seal in Antarctica, leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx). Together, both predators prowl a target-rich environment and all penguins are part of the menu. Moreover, because there are so many penguins fleeing for their lives, a traffic jam often occurs when the attacks happen. Accordingly, there is little or no room for the penguins to maneuver.
Given the fact the pack ice has rapidly extended its thick pavement earlier than usual, and there are fewer open water passages this season, obstructions are more common. To be sure, a penguin’s confusion and hesitancy for even a nanosecond work against its fate. Thus, ample time for a predator to strike.
Presently, the temperature of the water hovers around freezing and the ambient temperature is a balmy 24º F (-4.4º C). The fragmented pack ice creaks, snaps, and sometimes pops or buckles. Before long, the ice-bound landscape consisting of numerous archipelagoes and tapered waterways in this wide and far vicinity will indeed seal all the openings. Consequently, McMurdo Sound will stay solid until the summer thaw returns. Once the sea ice thickens to a maximum average of 5 or 6 feet (respectively, 1.5 to 1.8 m) gradation, even an icebreaker vessel can’t get through the 100 to the 125-mile barrier (respectively, 160 to 201 km). From here on, any deliveries to a retinue of wintering-over scientists and maintenance McMurdo Station workers will be delivered by aircraft.
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