QUESTION:
How many penguins are born in a year?
      
         Mr. Holz's class
         Newington Forest ES
 
ANSWER from Bill Fraser, Ecologist, Palmer Station, Antarctica
            Wed, 5 Feb 1997 12:27:03 -0500

    I hope you mean how many are born at Palmer Station and not
    the world!!--but I am glad you asked as we just figured out
    the numbers based on our data.  This season we had 9258
    breeding pairs in the area, each producing an average of
    1.41 chicks or 13054 chicks total.  Our numbers, by the way,
    are very "tight", meaning we are probably within plus or
    minus 2% in terms of this estimate.