Art and commentary by Kimberly Harris

Posts tagged ‘penguins’

All your penguins are belong to us

Frogs dressed in winter clothes are taking penguins to their saucer

We have come in peace to collect your penguins. We are taking them to a better place.

Not too terribly long ago, I was perusing through my blog’s logs and stumbled across a search string that I found rather intriguing. It read “Alien abductions frogs from Antarctica.” At first, it struck me as an odd query, but as I looked through scientific articles on the web, I realized that there was genuine concern about the diminishing population of emperor penguins in Antarctica. The scientists attribute this phenomenon to climate change, but could the depletion in the number of penguins be attributable to alien abductions? Could the alien frogs have observed the melting of the glaciers and the breakup of the ice shelves and concluded that the best way to save this cherished species would be to transport them away to a safer place where they would enjoy better protection? I can only speculate that on the alien frogs’ planet, penguins are a highly appreciated species, and periodic expeditions are sent out around the galaxy to collect them and bring them back as pets and mascots for the frogs.

Illustration by Kim Harris
Story by Don Rudisuhle

Category:

Animals, Extraterrestrials, Fantasy

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Rescued Penguins Sporting Fashionable New Sweaters

Three penguins are keeping warm with their new sweaters

Three proud penguins show off their colorful new knitted sweaters

On October 5, 2011, the 800-foot long container ship Rena struck the Astrolabe reef off New Zealand’s Port of Tauranga, causing 88 containers to fall into the sea and the release of a fuel oil spill estimated at 360 metric tons. Cleanup crews have recovered much of the oil, but at least a thousand seabirds have been killed.

It is hard to conceive how a tragedy of this magnitude could possibly occur, given that all these reefs are charted and stored in the maps contained in modern GPS systems.

Rescuers are cleaning the birds with canola oil to remove the fuel oil. Then, they are cleansed with detergent. Each bird cleaning requires about 250 gallons of water and takes about a half hour. This process eliminates the natural oils in the birds’ feathers, which makes them vulnerable to hypothermia.

A knitting shop called The Yarn Kitchen put out an appeal for knitters worldwide to make tiny sweaters for the little blue penguins most affected by the spill. Volunteers from far and wide responded to the call and produced a deluge of colorful sweaters, some of them embellished with environmental messages. The sweaters serve a dual purpose – to keep the birds warm until their natural oils are replenished, but more importantly, they prevent the birds from preening themselves and ingesting toxic oil residues.

All was not bad news for the birds. Seagulls were delighted when a broken container full of partially cooked hamburgers washed up on the shores of the Bay of Plenty and disgorged its contents onto the beach.

Illustration by Kim Harris
Story by Don Rudisuhle

Category:

Animals, Current events

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