Penguin populations have plummeted at a key breeding colony in Argentina, further fuelling concerns over the impact that climate change and pollution are having on the flightless marine birds.

 

The Punta Tombo site, the world's largest breeding colony of Magellanic penguins, has seen a 22 per cent decline in population in the last two decades, according to a study published in the journal Bioscience.

 

Dee Boersma, a University of Washington professor who led the research, said the plight of the penguins is an indicator of big changes in the world’s oceans due to human activities.

“Penguins are in trouble,” Boersma said. “They certainly are canaries in the coal mine.”

 

The professor, who has been observing the colony for the past 25 years, says that the decline appears to have begun in the early 1980s after the population peaked at approximately 400,000 breeding pairs in the mid 1970s.  Today’s total is only half that.

 

The world’s warming climate is only one of the penguins’ problems, she said. Factors such as oil pollution, depletion of fish stocks and coastal development in breeding grounds are also threatening their survival.

 

“Penguins are sentinels of the marine environment, and by observing and studying them, researchers can learn about the rate and nature of changes occurring in the southern oceans. As ocean samplers, penguins provide insights into patterns of regional ocean productivity and long-term climate variation,” Boersma wrote in the study.

 

The world has 17 species of penguin, spread across Antarctica, Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand and the Falkland Islands. Many species have been experiencing population declines mirroring that at the Punta Tombo colony, Boersma said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And yes, this is the fourth in my 'force for good' 'nuff said' series of blogs - collecting absurd, downright scarey and bizarre stuff from the world we live in.  As Peter Finch's character, Howard Beale, so memorably stated in the film Network:  "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"   And as I' can't resist saying, 'nuff said!