Penguin Decline Due to Global Warming?

[zavvy]

<b>Penguin Decline Due to Global Warming? </b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />The Earth is getting warmer, according to most scientists. In recent years that phenomenon has prompted researchers to investigate what effect rising temperatures are having on cold-loving penguins and other wildlife species. <br /><br />Les Underhill directs the Avian Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He suspects that global climate change may be responsible for declining penguin populations on South Africa's Prince Edward Islands. <br /><br />The islands dot the Indian Ocean some 1,000 miles (1,770 kilometers) off the South African coast. <br /><br />Most of the islands' penguin colonies are dwindling. According to Underhill, one reason for the decline may be a climate-induced southward shifting of food-rich waters. The change may have forced the seabirds to swim farther to forage. <br /><br />Underhill and his colleagues will soon begin to test this idea. The researchers plan to place electronic tracking devices on the islands' penguins to record when they go out to sea to get food for their chicks and when they return. <br /><br />"We suspect that one of the consequences of global climate change is that, with warmer seas, the journeys will become longer," he said in an interview with the radio program Pulse of the Planet. <br /><br />Food-Rich Waters <br /><br />The Prince Edward Islands sit near the southern boundary of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). It is in these food-rich waters that the islands' penguins are thought to forage. <br /><br />Considered the greatest of all ocean currents, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current mixes waters from the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans. It swirls about 140 million cubic meters (4.9 billion cubic feet) of water per second around Antarctica. <br /><br />The southern edge of the current is marked by a boundary separating it from

 

[CalliArcale]

Adelie penguins are featured in this month's National Geographic special on global warming. It's staggering how many of hte colonies are dwindling, or even gone altogether. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[Maddad]

Animals adapt to their conditions. Penquins are adapted to cold because that was the environment of their ancestors.<br /><br />One constant of life on Earth is change. When the environment changes, animals that were adapted to the old conditions are now maladapted to the new. It is why species live on average between one and ten million years before going extinct.<br /><br />The penguins are no longer ideally adapted to the new environment. Many will die, but probably a few will survive. The species will change, eventually becoming adapted to the world they find themselves in now. At that point they will no longer be adapted to their current ideal cold conditions.

 

[CalliArcale]

Actually, it doesn't have anything to do with their cold-adaptations, but rather the availability of food. They're having to range farther to catch enough food to feed their chicks due to shifting currents in the ocean.<br /><br />Not all penguins are residents of Antarctica, by the way. Penguins in South Africa enjoy quite warm conditions, and the Galapagos penguins live right on the equator! Penguins aren't so much cold-adapted as they are marine-adapted. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>