Growth Rate and Recovery of a King Penguin, Aptenodytes patagonicus, Population after Exploitation

Abstract

Counts of king penguins, Aptenodytes patagonicus. in a colony at Lusitania Bay, Macquarie I. (54°30'S.,158°55'E.) have demonstrated a 78-fold increase in the number of chicks produced annually between 1930 and 1980. The observed rate of growth of chick production in the colony (r = 0.097) was constant over that period. The minimum estimated size of the population increased from 3400 birds in 1930 to 218 000 birds in 1980, after the original population was decimated in the nineteenth century. The colony now supports the third largest population of king penguins in the world and contains at least 70 000 breeding pairs and possibly as many as 100 000 breeding pairs. The site of the colony has been fully reoccupied, probably since 1975 when a second, new colony began to form elsewhere on the island.