This article was originally hakai magazine, an online publication on science and society in coastal ecosystems.Read more articles like this hakaimagazine.com.

Scientists in South Africa have discovered that ceramic nesting boxes can protect endangered African penguins from climate change.

Seabirds once laid their eggs in burrows dug centuries ago in layers of their own excreta. In the 1800s, however, most guano was scraped up by merchants and shipped to England as fertilizer. Since then, many penguins have nested outdoors, exposed to heatstroke, exposing their eggs and chicks to desiccation and predators. Shaun Wellman, a zoologist at Nelson Mandela University (NMU), sees penguins with closed eyes, bowed heads and beaks, struggling to protect their eggs in the harsh midday heat. I came.

Penguins have evolved to retain heat in frigid water, so they can easily overheat on land. Penguins usually leave their burrows periodically to cool off in the sea, but without a suitable burrow, the eggs are not protected.

“We are now endangering this entire species, which is essentially due to human exploitation and greed,” says Wellman.

Since 1900, African penguin populations have dwindled to a fraction of their former glory. From 3 million penguins to just 48,000 he’s gone.

Fortunately, a team of researchers and conservationists working under the banner of the African Penguin Nest Project seems to have found a solution. Over the past four years, the team has designed more than 1,500 handcrafted ceramic nesting boxes and has worked on his five penguin colonies, including Bird Island in Algoa Bay, home to nearly half of the world’s remaining African penguins. has been deployed to

New research co-authored by Wellman shows that ceramic designs provide the best nests on Bird Island. Artificial nests are even cooler than the penguins’ own guano burrows, and only a few remain.

Welman and his colleague Lorien Pichegru, deputy director of NMU’s Institute for Coastal and Marine Research, found that old artificial nests made of cement get too hot. The temperature inside sometimes exceeded 40 °C and sometimes exceeded 50 °C, putting the eggs in danger of overheating. In previous research, Pichegru also documented that artificial nests made of fiberglass get dangerously hot.

But the new ceramic nest consisted of two shells molded of gray fabric soaked in a slurry of ceramic and put together like a small igloo to keep the birds cool.

The ceramic nests were about 1 °C below the penguin’s resting body temperature of 37.6 °C, and the humidity was kept at a comfortable 70% or higher. The nest was so effective, says Wellman, “that there was absolutely no danger of the eggs overheating if the adults had to abandon the nest for any reason.”

Even in mild weather, new nests make a difference. In another experiment, on a sunny 25°C day, the African Penguin Nest project team recorded temperatures of about 51°C on the ground outside ceramic hives and only 23°C inside.

African penguins appear to be more sensitive to direct sunlight than previously thought, so the discovery of a viable artificial nest wasn’t immediately feasible. I saw him gasping to cool off in the low temperature of 22°C. With climate change, birds nesting in endangered areas will become increasingly endangered.

Christina Hagen of BirdLife South Africa, who was not involved in the study, said it shows that ceramic nests are a potentially useful conservation tool. “Given the dire state of penguin populations in Africa, finding effective conservation solutions is essential,” she says.

A major threat to African penguins is overfishing of seabirds’ favorite food, anchovies and sardines. Scientists and conservationists are lobbying the South African government to ban commercial fishing around six African penguin breeding colonies until populations recover. But without warming temperatures and shelter from terrestrial predators, these efforts alone may not be enough. Ceramic nests help give these beloved seabirds a fighting chance.

This article first appeared on hakai magazinerepublished here with permission.