The Rockhopper Penguin | Articles of Interest for Travelers to The Antarctic
The Rockhopper Penguin
The Emperor penguins isn’t the only species that has found its way on to the big screen. The Rockhopper began its fifteen minutes of fame with the 2006 Academy Award-winning animated film, Happy Feet, thanks to Robin Williams’ portrayal in the role of Lovelace.
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The Rockhopper Penguin
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Like the Macaroni penguin, the Rockhopper is a crested species but at a little under two feet is shorter in stature with a slimmer physique, weighing five plus pounds. The Rockhopper’s back feathers are black and its front white. Its head and crest are black with yellow feathers that look like exotic yellow eyebrows. Its eyes are red. Most distinctive of all is the Rockhopper’s hopping gait that allows it to come ashore and get around on land and from which it obviously derives its name.
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The Rockhopper subsists on a diet of fish and krill. The Rockhopper makes its nest by burrowing on shorelines and breeds during the summer months from December to March. It lays two eggs but the first usually suffers an unfortunate fate. Once the second egg of the season is laid, the first is abandoned. Incubation lasts a little over a month.
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Some 650,000 of the world’s Rockhopper breeding pairs are of the southern subspecies, found in Chile, Argentina and islands further south. To see Rockhoppers during travel to Argentina and on Chile tours, visitors stop at Isla Pinguiero in the Straits of Magellan. This island is a popular destination for passengers during their Patagonia tours who cruise through the straits from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. Rockhoppers also breed on sub-Antarctic islands along rocky shores. They may be seen at Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands. Though the species is non-endemic to the Falkland Islands, over two million pairs once came to breed here. Today that number has diminished to about 200,000 breeding pairs. A small colony is found on Kidney Island off the east coast of East Falkland Island. The site is a reserve that visitors can reach by boat from Stanley during their travel to Antarctica, but government permission is required. Rockhoppers may also be seen on Pebble and Sea Lion islands in the Falklands, both of which may be reached by air during Antarctica tours as well as on West Falklands‘ Westpoint Island.
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Though populations are dwindling, Rockhoppers are still plentiful, estimated to number around two million breeding pairs. Reductions in some locations have changed the species’ status to “Vulnerable” in recent years. In some areas, colonies in more northerly latitudes have shrunk from millions to fewer than 100,000 over the last half-century. Consideration is being given to changing the status of Rockhoppers in the southerly latitudes to “Threatened.”
