IPC across the years
The International Penguin Congress has been the cornerstone gathering for the global penguin research community since it first took place in Dunedin in 1988. Held every three years (since 2004) each conference has spotlighted new advances in penguin biology, ecology, genetics, and conservation. Most recently, the 11th Congress was hosted in Viña del Mar, Chile, in September 2023, marking a triumphant return after the COVID‑19 hiatus.
Below you will find access to conference proceedings, abstract books, and programs from past conferences.
The first ever conference to be fully devoted to penguin science was held in what is believed to be the cradle of penguins, New Zealand, not far from where the rarest of all penguins breeds, the Yellow-eyed penguin.
Oceania sibling rivalry led to the 2nd penguin conference being held in Phillip Is., Australia, the only place where human settlements made way for penguins. For the littelest species of them all, no less.
Moving to South Africa, the third international penguin conference took place in another hot spot for penguins, the Cape of Good Hope.
The fourth conference was held on the southern fringes of the Atacama desert, a habitat most people do not associate with penguins. Yet, the most important breeding region for Humboldt penguins was only an hour’s bus ride away.
For the fifth conference, the penguin science community congregated as close to the Antarctic continent as possible, in the depth of Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia.
For IPC6, penguin scientists returned to Australia again. The conference was held in the shadow of the snow capped Mt. Wellington.
The seventh penguin conference was held in Boston, while the city experienced searing heat just to be followed by the approach of a tropical cyclone. No wonder climate change was a key topic of presentations.
The eighth international penguin conference and the second IPC to be held in the northern hemisphere (in a row, no less) where penguins are as popular as they are absent.
IPC9 took place in Cape Town – the second time South Africa has hosted the event. The meeting attracted almost 300 delegates and was held at the conference venue at the Two Oceans Aquarium.
For its tenth anniversary, IPC came back to where it all began 31 years earlier – Dunedin, New Zealand. Coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the University of Otago the conference was something special.
IPC11 marked the first reunion of the world’s penguins experts after the COVID pandemic that kept the world confined to their home offices for almost two years. It also represented the return of IPC to Chile after 23 years.
Thirty-four years after Phillip Island first hosted IPC2, the little penguins welcome the world back for round two – this time with less to cheer about. Amid marine heatwaves and a fresh El Niño, 25-year retrospectives track a slow slide toward extinction for African, Humboldt and yellow-eyed penguins alike, making IPC12 less a reunion than a reckoning.
