“The Great Penguin Rescue” Giveaway

The Great Penguin Rescue: 40,000 Penguins, a Devastating Oil Spill, and the Inspiring Story of the World's Largest Animal Rescue

by Dyan deNapoli

Free Press

320 pages

I just finished reading “The Great Penguin Rescue” by Dyan deNapoli, and thanks to Free Press, I have three copies to give away! Yeah!! For the next seven days, anyone who leaves a comment on my blog will automatically be entered in the giveaway. The more comments you leave…the more chances you have to win. At the end of seven days, I will print out all the comments for the week and put them in a bowl…and draw three out. If you’re not into commenting, send me an email. I will put all email entries in the bowl as well.

About the book (psstt…you’ll love it!)
"The Great Penguin Rescue" is an account of the world’s largest (and most successful) animal rescue ever. It takes place in South Africa after a tanker named the Treasure went down, spilling 1,300 tons of oil into the ocean and contaminating the habitat of nearly 40,000 African penguins (which is 41% of the world’s population of African penguins). Forty-one percent!!! Almost half the world’s population of this incredible bird was at risk and likely to die if a rescue wasn’t made…and quick. DeNapoli’s book chronicles the entire rescue operation giving a first-hand view of what happened. The book is a fast read because it’s hard to put down—you want to keep reading to learn every detail of the rescue. I was amazed at the effort involved in running a rescue operation…and of the sacrifices the volunteers made for the penguins. In a matter of days, people from all over the world massed to save these birds, most of whom were lay volunteers who needed to be trained. In addition to the comprehensive recounting of what it takes to put together and run a rescue effort, deNapoli weaves in inspiring stories of penguins she has worked with through the years, passing on a deeper (and more intimate) understanding of the species and probably a greater appreciation of them as well. At the end of three months when the massive rescue operation finally came to a close, 95% of all the penguins rescued were saved thanks to the work of over 12,500 people. 20,000 penguins had been rescued, washed, force-fed and finally rehabilitated, while another 20,000 had been captured and moved to a safer location. In all, 40,000 penguins, or almost half the world’s population, had been saved…

I took a lot of notes while I read this book, looking for perfect excerpts to help impart the meaning of the book, but I ended up with 7 pages of “meaningful” quotes. Basically, everything was meaningful! I settled with these four:

It was winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and the darkness of the South African morning surrounded us as we made our way to the rescue center. Our group was quiet during the twenty-five minute ride, each person lost in their own thoughts about the task we were about to face. Although collectively we had more than one hundred years of experience working with the penguins, none of us had dealt with a situation of this magnitude. The truth was that no one ever had. In the history of organized wildlife rescue, there had never been this many penguins—or any other kind of animal—oiled and recovered alive at once before. In fact, this penguin rescue would soon prove to be twice as large as any that had been attempted in the past. And it would double again in size before it was over (deNapoli 7).

On the day that Salt River opened, the Red Cross was there to take care of the people working the rescue effort. Their station was set up just inside the main entrance, on the right-hand side. This was where snacks and drinks were distributed to the volunteers, and where their injuries were treated. When they first arrived, Red Cross staff and volunteers probably had no idea they would spend the next few months of their lives stitching up deep wounds from vicious penguin bites, bandaging fingers shredded from force-feeding the birds, and giving tetanus shots to scores of injured volunteers. The more severe wounds ranged from fingers that had been slashed by razor-sharp beaks while feeding penguins to facial injuries inflicted by frightened birds. Most of these cuts and gashes could be treated simply by disinfecting and bandaging them; still, I imagine these Red Cross workers were quite surprised by the amount of suture material they went through during the course of the Treasure rescue. Penguins may look cute and cuddly but they are actually quite ornery, and most people are unaware of how powerfully they can bite. Their beaks can split human flesh like a steak knife slicing through butter. And because of their fierce jaw strength, these lacerations can be quite severe and surprisingly painful (deNapoli 96).

South Africa’s only penguins had long been struggling to survive and now they were in serious trouble; this oil spill could very well be the event that doomed them to an early extinction. Our goal in coming to Cape Town was to try to save these seabirds, not only as individual animals but as a species (deNapoli 117).

The average number of penguins being washed each day at that point was 550; but on this evening, the penguin washers pushed themselves harder so they could get through the remaining oiled birds. They were so close to completing their long task that they didn’t want to stop, not when the end was so tantalizingly near. That Saturday, they washed 693 penguins. It was the second largest number of birds to be washed in a single day during the Treasure rescue effort. Incredibly, it had taken just twenty-nine days to clean all the oiled penguins at Salt River (deNapoli 220).

Dyan deNapoli was formerly a Senior Penguin Aquarist at Boston’s New England Aquarium. She has spent the last fifteen years working with penguins and teaching more than 250,000 people about them. You can learn more about deNapoli by going to her website (www.thepenguinlady.com) or reading her blog, “The Penguin Lady.” The author is donating a portion of her proceeds from this book to penguin rescue, research, and conservation organizations, as well as to the Gulf oil spill relief efforts.