Deep dives and epic journeys: Return of the emperor penguins

A team of NIWA scientists eagerly awaits the return of 19 emperor penguins carrying high-tech data loggers and video cameras. What will the data captured reveal about the penguins' secret lives at sea?

The emperor penguin mums and dads of Cape Crozier are returning from their fishing trips, bringing back full bellies - and some, treasure troves of scientific data.

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A team of NIWA scientists camped out at Cape Crozier equipped 19 penguins with data loggers, and five with video cameras, hoping to capture clues about where the penguins go to forage, and what they might be eating.

This week we're continuing our rerun of the award-winning 2020 series Voices from Antarctica, produced by Alison Ballance. In this episode, Alison sits down with penguin researcher Gitte McDonald to look at the data from a recently returned emperor penguin.

It turns out, each individual penguin travels out to quite different parts of the pack ice, swimming 250km from the colony, and making dives as deep as 400m over more than two weeks. During these trips, an adult bird can pack on up to 2kg in body weight.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about the secret lives of these remarkable ice-dwellers.

Thank you to Liz Garton for help with this episode.

Learn more:

Read Alison's story (and check out her photos!) from the original episode that first aired in 2020.

Find all the Voices from Antarctica episodes here.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details