The endangered species I chose was the Yellow-eyed penguin. Penguins come from the bird family even if they can’t fly. The penguin’s scientific name is sphenisciformes. The penguin’s movement is mostly different from any other animal in the world. Penguins waddle on their feet or slide on their bellies on the snow. They also might jump with two feet if they wanted to. The yellow-eyed penguins have a torpedo shaped body that allows the bird to travel swiftly through water to catch food. It also often walks .5 mile a day to travel.

Penguins like to live in groups of various sizes. They rarely leave to places without having company or some kind of partner. When they lay eggs they rarely leave the nesting site. When yellow eyed penguins fight they peck and beat each other up with their flippers.

When yellow-eyed penguins are hungry they go in the water to catch squid, crabs, shrimp, and small fish. Its torpedo shaped body helps it catch its food in water. The penguin’s enemies are animals brought by humans like cats and dogs. Also one of their enemies are the fishermen. The penguins get caught in the fishermen’s net which end in killing the penguins.

Yellow-eyed penguins live in south of New Zealand, Stewart, codfish, Campbell, and on Auckland Islands. The yellow-eyed penguins live in inhabited coastal waters and sleep or rest on the sandy beaches. It is adapted to this life because they are used to feeding in inshore waters and rest on the beaches. Its defenses are that they use their flippers for hitting and their bills as swords.

Yellow- eyed penguins live up for about 20 years. As they grow older their feet grow more quickly because then they can lose the heat in their feet until they can control the temperature in their feet. After birth the chick has parental supervision for about 106 to 108 days. That is how long the parents take care of their chicks.

The yellow-eyed penguin is endangered because of some of the food shortages because of global warming and sea temperature. Also their nesting habitats are being destroyed by new farms being there. Before, humans used to eat the penguins when they were hungry. Now the wildlife organizations in New Zealand are buying the nesting sites to preserve of what is left of the yellow eyed penguins habitat. In the sites they have removed predators and begun to replant trees and vegetation. Now there is about fewer then 2,000 pairs of these penguins left.