BB Day 1 Reading

Literary Nonfiction
s
D TEXT
PAIREthat share a
texts e or topic
them
The Amazing
Penguin Rescue
A devastating oil spill, 40,000 penguins, and the
humans who saved their lives BY LAUREN TARSHIS
African
penguin
with her
chicks
magine you are an

African penguin living
on an island in the South
Atlantic Ocean. You live with
tens of thousands of other
penguins on a rocky beach. Its

June 23, 2000, and the weathercold
and windyis typical for this time of
year. The beach echoes with penguin noises:
Image Plan/Corbis (Penguin and chicks)
barks and honks and brays. Some of your

fellow penguins fight for territory, while others
cuddle with their mates or dote on
their chicks.
Youre hungry, so you head
down to the waters edge.
You waddle on tiny
feet, and your
wings are too
SCOPE.scholastic.com DECEMBER 2014
15
Hollamsbird
Island
stubby for flyingbut in the water, you
Swaziland
can swim faster and dive deeper than

any bird on Earth. As you plunge into
Atlantic
Ocean
the sea, your wings become powerful
Dassen
Island
Robben
Island
propellers. You shoot through the

water at 12 miles an hour, a black-andwhite blur, snatching sardines from
the surface, swallowing them whole,
catching more. Your tightly packed
Mozambique
Botswana
Namibia
South
Africa
Cape
Town
Lesotho
Port
Elizabeth
Algoa Bay
U.S.
EQUATOR
Scale of Miles
Africa
feathers protect you from
Indian
Ocean
Penguin
breeding
range
Area
of map
500
The oil spill hit the worlds largest

African penguin breeding ground.
the freezing water. You

remain in the sea for hours,
until your belly is full,
before heading back to
shore.
Thats when something
As you come to the
surface for air, the water
feels unfamiliar. It is too
thick; it burns your eyes.
You try to swim away, but
suddenly your wings have
become too heavy to lift.
Your body wobbles and
rolls. You feel bitterly cold.
You shiver and gasp for breath.
What you do not know is that a few hours ago, a
cargo ship called the Treasure suffered serious damage
ABOVE: Oil-covered
penguins BELOW: A
penguin is cleaned.
to its hull in the rough winter seas. It split apart, and

as it sank, about 1,300 tons of toxic oil gushed into the
Your wings are heavy
ocean. Now that oil surrounds your breeding ground
because they are
the largest African penguin breeding ground in the
coated with oil and
world. You and thousands of other penguins have been
waterlogged.
trapped in the massive oil slick and are soaked with

poisonous oil.
The impact of oil on a penguin (or any bird) is
But your instinct

for survival is strong,
and somehow you
immediate and devastating. You are shivering because
struggle back to shore, fighting against the current.
the oil has caused your feathers to clump and separate,
The journey, usually effortless, is an agonizing ordeal.
allowing the freezing water to lash at your sensitive
You manage to stagger onto the beach and back to
skin. Your eyes hurt because the oil has burned them.
your nest, where you lick and peck at your feathers,
16
Scholastic Scope DECEMBER 2014
Martin Harvey/Photo Researchers, Inc. (oil penguins); Photoshot/Age Fotostock (cleaning); Jim McMahon/MapMan (map)
goes wrong.
desperate to clean them. Finally, you give up. There is
to accommodate 100 penguins. Other areas of
nothing to do but stand there, terrified, dazed, silent.
the warehouse have been designated for washing

penguins. One room is filled with 10 tons of frozen
Strange Creatures
fish, the amount needed daily to feed the penguins.
Then the beach is invaded by enormous creatures.
Acquiring this enormous quantity of fish every day will
They are humans, but you dont know that. You
be among the workers great challenges.
have never seen a human before. These men and
Actually, everything is a challenge. Simply getting
women understand what you dont: that this oil spill is
one penguin to eat is a monumental task. In the wild,
a catastrophe for you and your species. Some of these
penguins hunt for sardines, gobbling them up while
people have dedicated their lives to helping birds like
the fish are still alive and wriggling. These
you, birds imperiled by oil spills and other human-
penguins wont accept dead fish from human
made disasters. They have participated in bird rescues
AFRICAN PENGUIN FACTS
around the world. All they care about is saving your life.
But how could you know this?
As these humans swarm the beach,
Eyes: Sharper
vision underwater
than on land
you are overcome with panic. When a

man catches you, you viciously fight
him off with your powerful jaws
and razor-sharp beak. You bite his
arm, ripping his skin through the fabric
of his thick coat. He doesnt let go, so you
strike again, biting his leg and inflicting
a wound that will leave a scar for the rest
of his life. But he cares more about you
than himself.
All across the beach, dozens of people
Beak: Hooked
and razor sharp
for capturing
fast-moving fish
are capturing penguins, enduring

excruciating bites and wing slaps as they load terrified
birds into crates. It is painful, exhausting work, and the
JOEL SARTORE/National Geographic Creative (Penguin)
sight of all of these scared and injured penguins is

Camouflage:
Protects from
predators in the
water
heartbreaking to the humans. Somegrown men

and womenfight back tears.
But they dont give up. Tens of thousands of
penguins are in danger. And these people intend to
save every single one.
Ten miles from the island, outside the city of Cape
Town, a team of scientists and volunteers
has transformed a warehouse into a penguin
rescue center. They work with astonishing
speed. The warehouse contains hundreds
of round enclosures, each large enough
Endangered:
Between 2001 and
2012, the population
declined by 67%.
Feathers:
300 per square
inch, the most of
any bird
scope.scholastic.com DECEMBER 2014
17
hands, so they must be
Penguins in their
holding pool,
about to be fed
force-fed. To force-feed a
penguin, a worker must
restrain it, pry its beak open,
and shove fish down its
throat. Feeding one penguin
can take an hour. Feeding all
the penguins takes an army
of workers 15 hours.
And then there is the
smell. The combined scent
of penguin droppings, dead
sardines, and human sweat
permeates the facilitya
stench so revolting that
many people vomit when they first arrive.
As news of the rescue effort spreads, thousands of
inch by inch. She carefully cleans your eyes and ears

with a toothbrush. You do not bite her. The next day,
volunteers flock to the warehouse, eager to help. They
after your feathers are clean and dry, this woman picks
are a diverse group, including wealthy women from
you up and holds you close to her chest. You do not try
fancy neighborhoods and poor teenagers from the
to get away.
streets of Cape Town. Some volunteers have experience

have one thing in common: a mission to save as many
penguins as possible.
Heading for Home

One day, after several weeks have gone by, you are
put into a box. You feel yourself being moved. When
the box is opened, you are on an unfamiliar beach. You
Terror and Healing

For you, one of thousands of oil-soaked penguins,
every hour brings new terrorsthe force feedings, the
ointment applied to your eyes, the tube stuck down
your throat to pump liquid charcoal into your stomach.
But as time passes, you begin to feel better. The
ointment heals your eyes, and the liquid charcoal helps
stand there until your instinct takes over; then you run
to the water and plunge in. Soon you are on the shores
of a rocky island.
Your island.
While you were gone, humans cleaned up the oil that
had covered the beach. The ocean carried the rest away.
Before long, thousands of other penguins arrive
your body rid itself of the oil you swallowed. You feel
on the island. The air is filled once again with honks
stronger. The humans win your trust and you accept fish
and barks. You have no idea that you have been part
from their hands. There is one woman who comes every
of the greatest animal rescue in history. Nearly 40,000
day. You recognize her voice and greet her with a bark.
penguins were saved. In the coming weeks, researchers
After many weeks, it is, at last, your turn to be

cleaned. You are taken to a room and placed into a
plastic tub. A woman pours vegetable oil over you to
will be elated to observe that many of the rescued birds

are paired up with mates and sitting on eggs.
You dont think about any of this because you are a
loosen the caked-on oil. She washes you with mild soap
penguin. All you know is that your world is finally as it
and warm water, her gentle hands scrubbing your body
should be.
18
Scholastic Scope DECEMBER 2014
PAGE 18: Photoshot/Age Fotostock (pool). PAGE 19: iStockphoto/Getty Images (paper);
Toby Zerna/Newspix/REX USA (penguins)
rescuing wildlife; others have never owned a pet. All
ARTICLE
The Seabird Chronicle

Saving Penguins, One
Sweater at a Time
sweaters. Putting the sweaters on the

penguins was tricky; at first the birds
were determined to tear them off with
their beaks. But amazingly, the sweaters
and whales, interfering with their ability
did the trick, warming the penguins
t was September 1998, and the
to breathe. It coats the fur of otters
and keeping them from preening.
rescue workers at Phillip Island
and seals, making it impossible for
This bought workers time to carefully
Nature Park in Australia had a
them to warm up or cool off. Oil can
clean the oil from each bird. Over time,
big problem: An oil spill near the
also contaminate the food supply. Sea
the birds grew strong and healthy.
island was threatening the little penguins
mammals, for example, become gravely
Eventually, the penguins were well
that lived there. (Little penguins are a
ill after eating an oil-coated fish or plant.
enough to return to the wild.
October 1, 2014
species of penguin, so named because
News of the sweaters success spread.
Of all the creatures that make
they are only 10 to 12 inches tall.) The
their home in the ocean, seabirds like
Tiny sweater patterns were posted
workers were scrambling to save the oil-
penguins are especially vulnerable in an
online so that penguin-loving knitters
slicked birds, but the penguins were in
oil spill. Oil strips feathers of the natural
all over the world could help with rescue
bad shape. They couldnt keep warm. To
oils that keep birds warm. This leads to
efforts. Soon, sweater donations were
make matters worse, they were trying to
hypothermia, a fatal condition. Plus,
pouring in.
preen their feathers to get rid of the oil.
ingesting even a small amount of oil can
In the process, they were swallowing the
be deadly to seabirds.
Enough Sweaters for Now
Sweater Success
Phillip Island have put the sweater
Over the past 15 years, workers on
toxic oil, which would slowly kill them.

If the workers didnt act quickly, the little
penguins were not going to survive.
Then the workers had an unusual
idea: sweaters.
Teeny-tiny penguin
Volunteers got busy with their
donations to good use, helping
knitting needles, and within days
save more than 1,000
the first penguins at Phillip Island
little penguins. (Sadly,

oil spills are not
were outfitted in their new wool
uncommon near the
sweaters. But would
island; the area is crowded
this crazy idea work?
with tankers transporting oil.)

Today, the nature park has more
Especially Vulnerable
sweaters than it needs. In fact, a
Oil spills in the ocean are
message on its website kindly asks
among the most devastating
volunteers to refrain from sending
of environmental disasters.
sweaters for now. Surplus sweaters
When a large quantity of oil leaks

into the sea, it can decimate fragile
have been donated to other wildlife
ecosystems and injure or kill marine
conservation groups, or sold in the gift
life. Oil clogs the blowholes of dolphins
shop, which raises money for the park.

Kristin Lewis
writing contest
Sometimes the problems of the world can seem hopeless and overwhelming. How
did the people in the two articles you just read solve seemingly overwhelming
problems? How do these stories bring hope to readers? Answer both questions
in a well-supported essay. Send it to Penguin Contest. Five winners will each
get The Race to Save the Lord God Bird by Phillip Hoose.
Get this
activity
Online
SCOPE.SCHOLASTIC.COM DECEMBER 2014
19

BB Day 1 Reading

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

BB Day 1 Reading

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

BB Day 1 Reading

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Literary Nonfiction

magine you are an

penguins on a rocky beach. Its

Image Plan/Corbis (Penguin and chicks)

barks and honks and brays. Some of your

SCOPE.scholastic.com DECEMBER 2014

stubby for flyingbut in the water, you

can swim faster and dive deeper than

the sea, your wings become powerful

propellers. You shoot through the

feathers protect you from

The oil spill hit the worlds largest

the freezing water. You

to its hull in the rough winter seas. It split apart, and

Your wings are heavy

ocean. Now that oil surrounds your breeding ground

because they are

the largest African penguin breeding ground in the

coated with oil and

world. You and thousands of other penguins have been

trapped in the massive oil slick and are soaked with

But your instinct

immediate and devastating. You are shivering because

struggle back to shore, fighting against the current.

the oil has caused your feathers to clump and separate,

The journey, usually effortless, is an agonizing ordeal.

allowing the freezing water to lash at your sensitive

You manage to stagger onto the beach and back to

your nest, where you lick and peck at your feathers,

Scholastic Scope DECEMBER 2014

desperate to clean them. Finally, you give up. There is

to accommodate 100 penguins. Other areas of

nothing to do but stand there, terrified, dazed, silent.

the warehouse have been designated for washing

fish, the amount needed daily to feed the penguins.

Then the beach is invaded by enormous creatures.

Acquiring this enormous quantity of fish every day will

They are humans, but you dont know that. You

be among the workers great challenges.

have never seen a human before. These men and

Actually, everything is a challenge. Simply getting

women understand what you dont: that this oil spill is

one penguin to eat is a monumental task. In the wild,

a catastrophe for you and your species. Some of these

penguins hunt for sardines, gobbling them up while

people have dedicated their lives to helping birds like

the fish are still alive and wriggling. These

you, birds imperiled by oil spills and other human-

penguins wont accept dead fish from human

made disasters. They have participated in bird rescues

AFRICAN PENGUIN FACTS

you are overcome with panic. When a

are capturing penguins, enduring

sight of all of these scared and injured penguins is

heartbreaking to the humans. Somegrown men

scope.scholastic.com DECEMBER 2014

hands, so they must be

inch by inch. She carefully cleans your eyes and ears

volunteers flock to the warehouse, eager to help. They

are a diverse group, including wealthy women from