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Magellanic penguins are found around the southern coast of South America and the Falkland Islands, where they breed in burrows in colonies that may be huge (as in the famous colonies at Punta Tombo in Argentina). Although they are abundant, Magellanics are of some concern to conservation biologists because of potential vulnerability to oil spills, overfishing of prey stocks, etc. These were photographed in a smallish colony (roughly 4000 pairs) on Seno Ottway (Ottway Sound), near the small city of Punta Arenas, in south Chile. Here the penguins dig their breeding burrows in open shrubland next to the coast; human visitors are restricted to well-marked paths that do not unduly disrupt the breeding birds. When my partner Jana and I drove out to the site in January 2009, adults were busy commuting between burrows and their feeding areas out in Seno Ottway, and large, nearly-fledged young could be seen at their burrows and on the beach, ready to go to sea for the first time.
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