After an elaborate courtship, the female will lay one egg, and both male and female will share the two month incubation. Once the baby penguin, or chick, hatches, the parents will forage for food, feeding the chick by regurgitation until it can fend for itself. After the chicks learn to swim, the family will return to the ocean and migrate north to southern Brazil. When the immature penguins return to Punta Tombo the following year, they will molt their feathers, and breeding will once again resume. The Magellanic penguin population has experienced a significant decline in the past decade.
Humans are largely to blame for the population drop.
Depletion of fishing stocks that the penguins feed on accounts for part of the decline, and there is currently no policy that keeps overfishing in check. Oil slicks also contribute to the mounting number of penguin deaths, and safety standards are still seriously flawed. Revitalization of the species is a slow process, since penguins are monogamous and may take up to two years to mate with a new partner, and females lay only one egg each year. The Fundacion Patagonia Natural is dedicated to protecting the region's natural resources and is leading an effort that would create a sea reserve at Punta Tombo and extend a fishing ban until reserves are replenished. Working toward the same goal, the Wildlife Conservation Society is dedicated to wildlife conservation, and in 1982 established the Magellanic Penguin Project.