With the upcoming cruise ship season approaching, the Falkland Islands Government Environment Department has been working in partnership with Falkland Islands Tourist Board to create and implement a set of guidelines for operators and tourists visiting the Gypsy Cove and Yorke Bay penguin colonies on cruise ship days.
April 25, marks World Penguin Day, an opportunity for many wildlife organizations to tout conservation efforts for these charismatic, amphibious birds. It’s nearly winter in the southern hemisphere, and April 25 coincides with Antarctic penguins’ annual northward march to the sea.
This Sunday, April 25, is World Penguin Day's celebration, a creation by researchers at the McMurdo Station, an American scientific center on Antarctica's Ross Island to mark every year's migration of Adeline penguins to the north.
Waddling up the beach in single file, their heads held high with an almost self-important demeanor, king penguins are a major draw in the Falkland Islands' tourism industry. Their fluffy brown chicks are nearly fearless of humans, meaning tourists at Volunteer Point, a peninsula on East Falkland Island might get almost close enough to touch one.
The Falkland Islands have warned that a million penguins are at risk from a funding black hole caused by Britain’s exit from the European Union. The Islands rely on European conservation projects to care and protect the penguin colonies, rookeries, in its shores. But with the U.K. fast approaching Brexit Day in March 2019, Falklands' lawmaker Teslyn Barkman has urged clarity on the future of Islands’ flippered friends.
The Falklands and the efforts to clear minefields left by the Argentine invasion in 1982, which have become de facto nature reserves for penguins, will be aired on BBC Radio 4 under the heading of Listen to Exploding Penguins, presented by Peter Gibbs and produced by Matthew Teller. The presentation will be Tuesday 9 May at 15:30 UK time.