Airdrops and king penguins: a potential conservation problem at sub-Antarctic Marion Island

Polar Record ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (175) ◽  
pp. 277-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Cooper ◽  
Nico L. Avenant ◽  
Peter W. Lafite
Keyword(s):  
King Penguin ◽  
Marion Island ◽  
Absolute Minimum ◽  
Macquarie Island ◽  
Aptenodytes Patagonicus ◽  
Direct Observations ◽  
Conservation Problem ◽  
The Absolute

ABSTRACTEvidence for the disturbance of king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) and other seabirds at sub-Antarctic islands by fixed-wing aircraft making airdrops is reviewed. Based on direct observations of panicking birds at king penguin colonies at Marion Island as Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft flew past, it is postulated that the incident at Macquarie Island in 1990 when many king penguins were found dead shortly after a flypast was most likely caused by panic induced by the aircraft's passage. Visits by fixed-wing aircraft to sub-Antarctic islands should be kept to a minimum and no airstrips should be built on them. Specific recommendations are given for fixed-wing aircraft visits to Marion Island, in order to reduce disturbance to king penguins and other seabirds to the absolute minimum. These recommendations should be adopted at all sub-Antarctic islands.

scholarly journals Tipping back the balance: recolonization of the Macquarie Island isthmus by king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) following extermination for human gain

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
John van den Hoff ◽  
Clive R. McMahon ◽  
Iain Field
Keyword(s):  
Breeding Season ◽  
Breeding Population ◽  
Egg Laying ◽  
King Penguin ◽  
Breeding Sites ◽  
Macquarie Island ◽  
Aptenodytes Patagonicus ◽  
Breeding Behaviour ◽  
Temporal Discontinuity

AbstractDuring the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when blubber oil fuelled house lamps, the king penguin population at Macquarie Island was reduced from two very large (perhaps hundreds of thousands of birds) colonies to about 3000 birds. One colony, located on the isthmus when the island was discovered in 1810, was extinct by 1894 and it took about 100 years for king penguins to re-establish a viable breeding population there. Here we document this recovery. The first eggs laid at Gadget Gully on the isthmus were recorded in late February 1995 but in subsequent years egg laying took place earlier between November and February (this temporal discontinuity is a consequence of king penguin breeding behaviour). The first chick was hatched in April 1995 but the first fledging was not raised until the following breeding season in October 1996. The colony increased on average 66% per annum in the five years between 1995 and 2000. King penguins appear resilient to catastrophic population reductions, and as the island's population increases, it is likely that other previously abandoned breeding sites will be reoccupied.

scholarly journals English spelling among the top priorities in pronunciation teaching: Polglish local versus global(ised) errors in the production and perception of words commonly mispronounced

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Nowacka
Keyword(s):  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
First Year ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Routine Procedure ◽  
Absolute Minimum ◽  
Individual Word ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
English Spelling

This paper presents the results of a questionnaire and recording-based study on production and recognition of a sample of 60 items from Sobkowiak’s (1996:294) ‘words commonly mispronounced’ by 143 first-year BA students majoring in English. 30 lexical items in each task represent 27 categories defined by Porzuczek (2015), each referring to one aspect of English phonotactics and/or spelling-phonology relations. Our aim is to provide evidence for the occurrence of local and globalised errors in Polglish speech. This experiment is intended to examine what types of errors, that is, seriously deformed words, whether avoidable, ‘either-or’ or unavoidable ones, as classified in Porzuczek (2015), are the most frequent in production and recognition of words. Our goal is to check what patterns concerning letter-to-sound relations, are not respected in the subjects’ production and recognition of an individual word and what rules should be explicitly discussed and practised in a phonetics course. The results of the study confirm the necessity for explicit instruction on the regularity rather than irregularity of English spelling in order to eradicate globalised and ‘either-or’ pronunciation errors in the speech of students. The avoidable globalised errors which have turned out to be the most numerous in a production task include such areas of English phonotactics as: the letters <-old> and <oll>, ‘mute consonant letters’, ‘isolated errors’ and two categories related to the reduction of unstressed syllables: ‘reduce the vowel in stress-adjacent syllables and in syllables following the stressed one to /ə/ or /ɪ/’ and ‘reduce <-ous>, <-age>, and <-ate> in nouns and adjectives.’ The hope is also expressed that once introducing spelling-to-sound relations becomes a routine procedure in pronunciation training, the strain on part of the students of memorizing a list of true local errors, phonetically challenging pronunciation exceptions, will be reduced to the absolute minimum.

Introduction

1989 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
David Sansone ◽  
David Sansone ◽  
David Sansone
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Concern ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Absolute Minimum ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
Ancient Source ◽  
Commercial Enterprise ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Modern Sense

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Plutarch's Lives, which represent a valuable ancient source for the more interesting periods of Greek and Roman history. However, it is not as a historian, or even as a biographer in the modern sense of the word, that Plutarch has been so highly valued. Rather, those who regard Plutarch as among the greatest of ancient authors appreciate him principally as a moralist and as a purveyor of political wisdom. To understand what kind of biography Plutarch was writing (or thought he was writing), the chapter considers what the art of biography was like in Plutarch's lifetime. Plutarch is in large measure responsible for the importation of ethical concern into the biographical genre. The chapter then looks at the Lives of Aristeides and Cato. While Cato is wholly admirable for his ability to be satisfied with the absolute minimum, his virtue is somewhat tainted, as far as Plutarch is concerned, by an excessive interest in commercial enterprise and by an obsession with money. For this reason, Aristeides is more virtuous and more nearly divine.

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