The Brutal South Pole Birds

The southernmost birds on earth—the only higher animal except man and his dogs that go close to the South Pole—are the Antarctic skuas. They are fierce, brutal little killers. Dwellers in the earth’s most inhospitable habitat, they have been able to survive largely because of their extreme rapaciousness.

All other Antarctic birds, such as the penguins, stay close to the shore of the desolate continent. The skua has been seen at least 300 miles inland, and occasionally may fly across the pole itself.

These birds arrive on the coast of Antarctica about the middle of October, the beginning of the southern summer, after spending the winter north of the circle. Their arrival is timed to coincide with the egg-laying of the Adelie penguins. The skua’s chief food consists of penguin eggs and chicks which it devours by the hundreds. Scores of half-eaten, trampled bodies of young penguins always can be found during the hatching season near the sites of penguin rookeries. The skua is hardly a match for the parent birds but is expert in separating chicks from the brood and killing them when they have no protection. It is a creature of relatively enormous strength and endurance and flies long distances carrying chunks of meat bigger than itself. It also is an extremely noisy, quarrelsome creature—an outstanding example of the philosophy of every individual for itself. There is no brooding of chicks nor protecting them from the elements. The parents hardly bother to feed them.

Little skuas, it is reported, come out of the eggs fighting. Usually there are two eggs to a nest. One chick probably is a trifle weaker than the other. In a short time it is driven from the nest, killed and eaten by its rapacious brother or sister. It may even become the prey of its own hungry parents. Skuas also have the habit of eating their own eggs. This keeps the population within the limits of the food supply.