Dyan deNapoli: The great penguin rescue

31,070 views ・ 2011-08-09

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For as long as I can remember,
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I have felt a very deep connection to animals and to the ocean.
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And at this age, my personal idol was Flipper the dolphin.
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And when I first learned about endangered species,
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I was truly distressed to know that every day,
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animals were being wiped off the face of this Earth forever.
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And I wanted to do something to help, but I always wondered:
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What could one person possibly do to make a difference?
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And it would be 30 years,
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but I would eventually get the answer to that question.
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When these heartbreaking images of oiled birds
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finally began to emerge from the Gulf of Mexico last year
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during the horrific BP oil spill,
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a German biologist by the name of Silvia Gaus was quoted as saying,
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"We should just euthanize all oiled birds,
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because studies have shown
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that fewer than one percent of them survive after being released."
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And I could not disagree more.
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In addition,
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I believe that every oiled animal deserves a second chance at life.
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And I want to tell you why I feel so strongly about this.
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On June 23, 2000,
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a ship named the Treasure sank off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa,
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spilling 1,300 tons of fuel,
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which polluted the habitats of nearly half the entire world population
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of African penguins.
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Now, the ship sank between Robben Island to the south,
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and Dassen Island to the north --
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two of the penguins' main breeding islands.
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And exactly six years and three days earlier,
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on June 20, 1994,
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a ship named the Apollo Sea sank near Dassen Island,
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oiling 10,000 penguins, half of which died.
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Now when the Treasure sank in 2000,
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it was the height of the best breeding season
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scientists had ever recorded for the African penguin,
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which at the time, was listed as a threatened species.
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And soon, nearly 20,000 penguins
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were covered with this toxic oil.
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The local seabird rescue center, named SANCCOB,
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immediately launched a massive rescue operation,
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and this soon would become the largest animal rescue ever undertaken.
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At the time, I was working down the street.
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I was a penguin aquarist at the New England Aquarium.
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And exactly 11 years ago yesterday,
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the phone rang in the penguin office.
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And with that call, my life would change forever.
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It was Estelle van Der Merwe calling from SANCCOB,
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saying, "Please come help.
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We have thousands of oiled penguins
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and thousands of willing but completely inexperienced volunteers.
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And we need penguin experts to come train and supervise them."
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So two days later,
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I was on a plane headed for Cape Town
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with a team of penguin specialists.
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And the scene inside of this building was devastating and surreal.
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In fact, many people compared it to a war zone.
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Last week, a 10-year-old girl asked me:
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"What did it feel like when you first walked into that building
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and saw so many oiled penguins?"
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And this is what happened.
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I was instantly transported back to that moment in time.
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Penguins are very vocal birds and really, really noisy,
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so I expected to walk into this building
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and be met with this cacophony of honking and braying and squawking.
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But instead,
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when we stepped through those doors and into the building,
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it was eerily silent.
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So it was very clear
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these were stressed, sick, traumatized birds.
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The other thing that was so striking
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was the sheer number of volunteers.
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Up to 1,000 people a day came to the rescue center.
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Eventually, over the course of this rescue,
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more than 12-and-a-half thousand volunteers
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came from all over the world to Cape Town,
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to help save these birds.
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And the amazing thing was that not one of them had to be there.
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Yet they were.
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So for the few of us that were there in a professional capacity,
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this extraordinary volunteer response to this animal crisis
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was profoundly moving and awe-inspiring.
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So the day after we arrived,
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two of us from the aquarium were put in charge of room two.
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Room two had more than 4,000 oiled penguins in it.
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Now, mind you --
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three days earlier, we had 60 penguins under our care,
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so we were definitely overwhelmed
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and just a bit terrified -- at least I was.
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Personally, I really didn't know
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if I was capable of handling such a monstrous task.
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And collectively,
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we really didn't know if we could pull this off.
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Because we all knew that just six years earlier,
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half as many penguins had been oiled and rescued,
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and only half of them had survived.
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So would it be humanly possible to save this many oiled penguins?
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We just did not know.
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But what gave us hope
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were these incredibly dedicated and brave volunteers,
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three of whom here are force-feeding penguins.
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You may notice they're wearing very thick gloves.
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And what you should know about African penguins
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is that they have razor-sharp beaks.
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And before long,
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our bodies were covered head to toe
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with these nasty wounds inflicted by the terrified penguins.
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Now the day after we arrived, a new crisis began to unfold.
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The oil slick was now moving north towards Dassen Island,
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and the rescuers despaired,
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because they knew if the oil hit,
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it would not be possible to rescue any more oiled birds.
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And there really were no good solutions.
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But then finally,
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one of the researchers threw out this crazy idea.
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He said, "OK, why don't we try and collect the birds
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at the greatest risk of getting oiled" --
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they collected 20,000 --
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"and we'll ship them 500 miles up the coast to Port Elizabeth
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in these open-air trucks,
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and release them into the clean waters there
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and let them swim back home?"
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(Laughter)
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So three of those penguins -- Peter, Pamela and Percy --
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wore satellite tags,
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and the researchers crossed their fingers
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and hoped that by the time they got back home,
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the oil would be cleaned up from their islands.
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And luckily, the day they arrived, it was.
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So it had been a huge gamble, but it had paid off.
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And so they know now that they can use this strategy
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in future oil spills.
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So in wildlife rescue as in life,
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we learn from each previous experience,
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and we learn from both our successes and our failures.
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And the main thing learned during the Apollo Sea rescue in '94
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was that most of those penguins had died due to the unwitting use
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of poorly ventilated transport boxes and trucks,
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because they just had not been prepared
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to deal with so many oiled penguins at once.
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So in these six years between these two oil spills,
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they've built thousands of these well-ventilated boxes.
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And as a result, during the Treasure rescue,
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just 160 penguins died during the transport process,
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as opposed to 5,000.
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So this alone was a huge victory.
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Something else learned during the Apollo rescue
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was how to train the penguins
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to take fish freely from their hands,
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using these training boxes.
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And we used this technique again during the Treasure rescue.
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But an interesting thing was noted during the training process.
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The first penguins to make that transition to free feeding
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were the ones that had a metal band on their wing
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from the Apollo Sea spill six years earlier.
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So penguins learn from previous experience, too.
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So all of those penguins had to have the oil meticulously cleaned
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from their bodies.
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It would take two people at least an hour just to clean one penguin.
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When you clean a penguin,
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you first have to spray it with a degreaser.
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And this brings me to my favorite story from the Treasure rescue.
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About a year prior to this oil spill,
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a 17-year-old student had invented a degreaser.
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And they'd been using it at SANCCOB with great success,
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so they began using it during the Treasure rescue.
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But partway through, they ran out.
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So in a panic, Estelle from SANCCOB called the student
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and said, "Please, you have to make more!"
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So he raced to the lab
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and made enough to clean the rest of the birds.
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So I just think it is the coolest thing
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that a teenager invented a product
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that helped save the lives of thousands of animals.
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So what happened to those 20,000 oiled penguins?
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And was Silvia Gaus right?
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Should we routinely euthanize all oiled birds
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because most of them are going to die anyway?
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Well, she could not be more wrong.
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After half a million hours of grueling volunteer labor,
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more than 90 percent of those oiled penguins
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were successfully returned to the wild.
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And we know from follow-up studies
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that they have lived just as long as never-oiled penguins,
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and bred nearly as successfully.
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And in addition,
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about 3,000 penguin chicks were rescued and hand raised.
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And again, we know from long-term monitoring
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that more of these hand-raised chicks survive to adulthood and breeding age
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than do parent-raised chicks.
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Armed with this knowledge, SANCCOB has a chick-bolstering project,
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and every year, they rescue and raise abandoned chicks,
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and they have a very impressive, 80 percent success rate.
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This is critically important,
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because one year ago,
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the African penguin was declared endangered.
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And they could be extinct in less than 10 years
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if we don't do something now to protect them.
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So what did I learn
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from this intense and unforgettable experience?
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Personally, I learned that I am capable of handling so much more
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than I ever dreamed possible.
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And I learned that one person can make a huge difference.
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Just look at that 17-year-old.
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And when we come together and work as one,
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we can achieve extraordinary things.
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And truly, to be a part of something so much larger than yourself
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is the most rewarding experience you can possibly have.
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So I'd like to leave you with one final thought
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and a challenge, if you will.
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My mission as The Penguin Lady is to raise awareness and funding
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to protect penguins.
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But why should any of you care about penguins?
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Well, you should care because they're an indicator species.
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And simply put: if penguins are dying, it means our oceans are dying.
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And we ultimately will be affected,
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because, as Sylvia Earle says,
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"The oceans are our life-support system."
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And the two main threats to penguins today
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are overfishing and global warming.
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And these are two things
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that each one of us actually has the power to do something about.
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So if we each do our part, together, we can make a difference,
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and we can help keep penguins from going extinct.
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Humans have always been the greatest threat to penguins,
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but we are now their only hope.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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