The CulturePulp Interview: Oregon Zoo Senior Penguin Keeper Shawn St. Michael




As promised to readers of today's CulturePulp comic: Here's my long interview with Oregon Zoo Senior Penguin Keeper Shawn St. Michael.

The Oregon Zoo's "Penguinarium" precisely recreates the endangered Humboldt Penguin's habitat. It's currently home to 29 Humboldts and 17 Inca terns. We met with Shawn inside the "penguin kitchen" -- the secret nerve center behind the exhibit. It's an action-packed little room full of fish, charts, "Bloom County" cartoons, scientific equipment, computers and standing water. (They'd just hosed the floor.)

Before we fed the penguins -- an occasionally humiliating experience, detailed in today's comic -- I asked Shawn every obvious question that a person completely ignorant of penguins or zookeeping (i.e., me) might ask. Meanwhile, my stepdaughter shot reference photos.

Fortunately, Shawn offered gloriously detailed, funny and well-spoken answers -- about everything from the growing science of helping these animals thrive in captivity to the myriad ways a penguin (a surprisingly rough-tempered bird) can royally mess you up.

But first, we talked about Mochica -- the completely unperturbed penguin who was wandering freely among the people in the kitchen. An edited transcript follows the jump.

Click here to read the whole interview!

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CULTUREPULP: People always wonder what the back rooms of these places are like -- would you call this the "nerve center" of the penguin exhibit?

SHAWN ST. MICHAEL: More like the "neurotic center." [laughs] This is where we run the penguin operation -- the penguin kitchen. We do all our fish prep in here. These guys will eat up to 55 pounds of fish a day at the peak. That's obviously not per-bird -- we're talking about a 9- to 13-pound bird.

Q. Mochica weighs -- what? -- 10 pounds?

A. Mochica here weighs 9-and-a-half pounds.

Q. Why is he allowed to walk around in here?

A. Mochica is allowed to walk around in here because he wasn't strictly hand-raised, but he had a lot of hands on him when he was a youngster -- and he just decided that people were the way to go. And he actually prefers people to penguins; he will mingle with the common folk out there, but he's clearly stooping.




Q. Does he spend most, if not all, of his time in here?

A. No. He comes in in the mornings, hangs out, socializes, gets a cup of coffee. [laughs] And then we throw him out. Actually, I should re-phrase that to make it sound a little nicer: "And then we re-introduce him to all the rest of the penguins for the remainder of the day." We chuck him out of the kitchen around about noon.

Q. How does he announce that he wants in? Does he just show up at the door?

A. He knows his name. If he's out in the water and you call him, he'll come.




Q. How did the name "Mochica" come about?

A. The Mochicans are actually a South American native tribe. I didn't name him, but we later found out they were really quite warlike. They're also noted for their pottery, much of which is -- how can I say this delicately? -- explicit.
And he's "Mochica" when he really should be "Mochico," because the "a" is the feminine. But we thought he was a girl for years, because males and females look alike; you draw blood to tell them apart. So he was misunderstood for many years. Now we've got a better handle on him.

Q. Why did he receive more hands-on attention than other penguins?

A. He didn't receive more hands-on attention than other penguins at that time. It's just that at that time, this species in particular was very, very difficult to raise. The chick mortality was very, very high. So we paid a lot of attention to these babies, and did a lot of labor-intensive husbandry with them. Whereas now, we've evolved enough that we check 'em daily, but it's a fairly hands-off process; we kind of let Mom and Dad do it all.

Q. So basically, you've been teaching yourselves over the years how to get these chicks born in captivity?

A. Yeah. Because of course an animal like a penguin is incredibly specialized -- they've been evolving for about 40 million years, and so their requirements are very particular.

Q. What sort of requirements are we talking about?

A. Well, all the air you're breathing in here is filtered down to three microns.




Q. It's very humid in here, too.

A. That's because we just hosed the floor. We actually have a dehumidifier on this building, because it's not humid in Peru. Where these guys are found, it's a coastal desert -- and for being on the coast, it's awfully dry.

Q. Not what I would have expected.

A. No. It's not what most people expect. And the floor on which you're walking is special athletic surfacing -- kind of like a running track. It was pioneered here years and years ago, because the penguins will get foot problems if they step on a concrete floor.

Q. Because they're used to walking on sand?

A. Actually, what they're used to walking on is guano. There is, along the coast of Peru and Chile, a lot of guano, because 20 percent of the world's fish-catch used to come off the coast of Peru. Historically, they're incredibly rich in fish -- which means they're incredibly rich in anything that eats fish, like seabirds. At one point, there were guano mats there that were 500 feet thick in places. So no Club Med there; you don't see a lot of people out on the beach sunning themselves. But there are a lot of birds. And that's what the penguins nest in -- they actually burrow into that guano.

Q. I've never really seen a penguin this close-up. Their feathers actually look and feel kind of scaly -- like a fish's skin. Is there a lot of oil in their pelts?

A. They actually have a gland right about here [points to just above Mochica's tail] -- the sebaceous gland -- that excretes the oil, and they spread that all over their feathers. But really, the main way they keep water from their skin is that their feathers are just really tightly packed; they fit real close together, like the shingles on a roof. They're built like little footballs.




Q. Have you been down in their native habitat? Has part of your learning process been to go down to Peru?

A. They actually keep sending me down to Peru and I keep turning up like a bad penny. Yeah, I've gone down there twice to do field work with the wild Humboldt penguins -- which has been interesting. Like I said, it's not exactly a luxury environment -- lots of guano, lots of birds.

Q. How far do your feet go into the poop?

A. It dries out real fast. Actually, it looks like this. [He pulls out a Tupperware container of dried guano, which looks like nothing so much as a sheet of very, very thick RyKrisp.] This is guano. As you can see, over time, this stuff compacts. And it's … pungently aromatic. [laughs]

Q. It is, in fact, pungently aromatic. [The smell finally, really makes it to my nose.] Aw, geez!




A. And they actually harvest that stuff in Peru -- it's a resource. Fertilizer -- great for your garden. Last time I was there, actually, it was during the guano harvest -- and they were so particular about getting every last little bit, that they would get down on hands and knees with whisk brooms and little dustpans. Hundred-pound bags. And there was no mechanization allowed, of course, because it's a penguin reserve, and machines would scare the birds. So they did all this stuff by hand.

Q. How endangered is the Humboldt penguin?

A. The current wild population is currently about 24,000 birds -- down from what was at one time probably 5 million. So it's a very dramatic decline.

Q. Over what time frame?

A. That's from somewhere back in the 1800s. But the numbers have been declining pretty steadily for quite some time. They're hit real, real hard by the El Nino events, which are happening with greater frequency and severity. Scientists are having trouble coming up with some sort of causal relationship there, but for whatever reason, El Nino's happening more frequently and more severely than it has in the past.
The last real, real bad one was in '98 -- and at that time, all of the penguin chicks that researchers were tracking died. The reason for that is that during an El Nino year, the water warms up and all the fish take off. So it's not just the penguins [who are endangered] -- it's seals and sea lions and all kinds of seabirds.




Q. How many are in captivity?

A. Current U.S. population is about 250 birds…. It's actually a pretty good captive population -- about a thousand in Europe, about a thousand in Asia, and a couple hundred in the States.
We manage our population pretty closely, because they are an endangered species. In the captive population, we know who's related to whom, and how closely, and we try to pair them up based on that knowledge, and manage them on a 100-year-plan.

Q. Do you introduce any of the population back into the wild?

A. Not yet. We're not at the place where we need to do that yet, and there are all sorts of difficulties associated with doing that -- what sorts of pathogens are you going to introduce into a wild population….

Q. Let's talk about the functions of this control room. This is a kitchen, but is it also a first-aid room? Where do you treat the penguins if they're injured?

A. Basically, this is a food-prep area. That "First Aid" sign is there just so we know where the first-aid kit is. But if we have a chick that's not doing well, that's not eating well, if it needs to be watered or fed or warmed up, we can accomplish that here. We have an Isolette for that purpose, plus medical supplies and scales….




Q. I'm sorry -- Isolette? What is that?

A. [Shawn points to a miniature incubator in the corner] Baby penguins prior to 10 days of age can't thermo-regulate; they can't maintain their own body temperature. If you let them get cold, they'll freeze. So Mom and Dad sit on those guys when they're tiny. So if they get sick for any reason in the early stages of life, they go into an Isolette. Basically, it's a warming chamber.
And before the eggs hatch, we use this thing, which is called an "egg candler," that allows you to see what's going on inside the egg. And of course there are all the more technical things you have to do -- feeding tubes, vitamins….

Q. How many years have you been doing this, Shawn?

A. I've been doing this since I was a kid, basically. I started here as a ZooTeen years and years and years ago, and I just never left.

Q. What sort of study was involved?

A. I went to school -- I took biology and English, because I couldn't decide if I wanted to take care of animals or talk. Biology or zoology courses work. But it was also just the school of life. I worked all around the place -- I worked with elephants and I worked with bears and I worked with primates and I worked a lot with birds. And birds are really my first love, so this is where I wound up.

Q. I was talking earlier with one of the other employees about the penguins' very controlled diet -- it's sorted by number of fish, each fish injected with a complex vitamin, etc. And he also mentioned the collaborative, knowledge-sharing effort you have going with other zoos.

A. Oh, yeah. These animals in zoos are regulated through something called the "Species Survival Plan." Through that, we can tell how closely related the animals are, who ought to be reproducing with whom to maintain genetic diversity. We move animals around based on that.
And there's also a husbandry manual, which is available to all the zoos in the country that have these guys; it makes sure that we're all on the same page about how to take care of them. So it's actually quite structured -- it's not like everybody does their own thing with their penguins.
It's actually pleasantly collaborative. Sometimes it's annoyingly collaborative. [laughs] The vitamins that we use in the fish that we feed to our penguins now, we actually had help formulating from Brookfield Zoo in Chicago…. they're a very big entity in managing penguins in captivity. They actually sent their nutritionist down and looked at our data, and helped formulate a special vitamin for us to use with our penguin collection.

Q. Now, Mochica has clearly developed his own personality, and has his own locker, I noticed…. [laughs] what's in there?

A. Probably herring. [laughs]

Q. Do you name all these penguins? How distinct are their personalities?

A. Yes, they all have distinct personalities, and they all have names, but some of their names are quite simple. We have one bird out there that's just named "Yellow Left," because he has a yellow band on his left flipper. But mostly they have more intricate names like "Mochica" or "Peyone." We have a "Fuzzy" -- don't tell anybody. We have an "Opus" -- we don't wanna tell anybody that, either. [laughs]

Q. How long does it take for the personalities to emerge -- for the birds to differentiate themselves?

A. Usually it takes a few years. They're juveniles for a couple of years. After about two years, they replace all their old feathers with … adult plumage. Which is why everybody's wearing bands -- so we can figure out who's who.




Q. [indicating the main penguin habitat, visible out the kitchen window] Are people allowed in there? Is it a secure habitat?

A. We typically don't take people in there because penguins bite. Mochica's very, very nicely mannered, but these guys will….

Q. Really. I wouldn't have expected that.

A. Oh, yeah. They can defend themselves quite nicely. They're very territorial, and they can take a big chunk out of your leg. We actually have more keepers here with scars from penguins than with scars from just about any other animal. And they can leave a pretty good scar.

Q. Do they attack you in a group? Do they swarm you? [laughs]

A. No. They're very interesting animals in that they're very communal -- you have to have them in a group or they don't breed very well -- but they form very strong pair bonds, and they essentially mate for life. We say "essentially" because there have been recent studies that indicate that penguin females, provided with the right incentive … will have the occasional dalliance. But for the most part, they mate for life. And they all maintain their own little territories out here.




Q. They have neighborhoods out there?

A. They do. They'll leave their areas to go swimming -- they use the whole habitat -- but they spend most of their time [in single areas].
[indicates the penguin kitchen] And this here's the high-rent district, which is why Mochica thinks he's so cool. He's got the biggest nest box -- the whole kitchen -- of all the penguins.

Q. From what you've described, these birds are much smarter than I'd expect. I mean, my clichés about penguins are the ones I'm sure most people have: They're all kind of the same, they move around like lemmings, they're very sweet…. It's informed as much by "Bloom County" as it is by actual reality.

A. Oh, absolutely. And the reality is: They're actually pretty cantankerous. Mostly they're not that sweet. They're pretty smart, I think, because they have to be -- life in the wild is not easy for a penguin. Most birds can't afford to have a lot of fat, because they have to be light in order to fly. But penguins are flying through the water, so hey -- bring on the fat, because it floats and keeps them warm. But because they have all that fat, they're like tasty, floating sticks of butter.

Q. They're like the all-predator buffet.

A. You bet -- seals, sea lions, sharks, killer whales…. So these guys are pretty darn tough. When they get really annoyed with you, what they do is grab you with their bill and hang on -- and you'll notice that Mochica has a nasty little hook on his bill -- and then they'll whack you with their flippers. And they can actually hit you hard enough to break your fingers. Mochica's flippers don't bend much -- they have to be stout to propel them through the water; if it had a lot of flesh in it, they'd give up a whole lot of propulsion. And it makes an awful good club.

Q. So the flippers are more oar than rudder?

A. They actually use the feet and the tail kind of like the rudder on a boat. You know how a duck kicks its feet? Penguins don't do that; they keep their feet behind them and use them to steer.




[After I fed Mochica -- as detailed in CulturePulp 033 -- and we spent a few thrilling minutes inside the habitat feeding some other penguins, I had a few more questions.]

Q. I'm stunned at how vain Mochica is.

A. Oh, yeah -- he's quite full of himself.

Q. And when he did that weird head-shake while I was trying to feed him, bending his head toward his chest….

A. He was saying, "I don't want a fish, but I don't want to offend you. Please forgive me." He'll also do that same head-shake if he's in the kitchen and you've got to throw him out.




Q. It's almost a human expression.

A. Yeah -- like, "I know you don't really want to do this. Let's be buddies." I'm anthropomorphizing like crazy here, but that's the message I think he's sending.

Q. I would imagine the tendency to want to anthropomorphize is pretty profound -- you want to assign him human characteristics when that may not in fact be what's going on in his mind at all.

A. Well, part of that's the job. You have to be able to read the animals to a certain extent. And you do that through your own matrix. I mean, you don't go, "I'm gonna get in the head of a penguin! I know what a penguin's thinking!" No, it all filters through your own personal experience.
But I've worked with these guys long enough where I've gotten to point where I kind of know what things mean. And yeah, I'm anthropomorphizing, but who cares? Most of the time, I'm right!

Q. I noticed when you opened the door on the penguin habitat, that it's surprisingly warm in there.

A. Yeah. 70 degrees, 50-percent humidity -- which is about what it is on the coast of Peru. The roof was put on in '87. The walls and the rest of the habitat were built much, much earlier, in the '60s. It used to be open.

Q. Is learning more scientifically about these animals what led to the roof?

A. Yes.

Q. And that's when their reproductive rate went up, isn't it?

A. Oh, yeah. We roofed it in and put in a big air handler and the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system -- and that's when we really started cookin', because we were better able to meet their needs. Which is sort of the whole name of this game.




Photos (originally shot for comic-strip reference) by Stephanie Larson.

Posted: Tue - July 19, 2005 at 10:53 AM        

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