Penguins Disappearing From Southern Hemisphere

The Scotsman is running a piece looking at the mysterious disappearance of penguins from all around the world. A biologist who studies the rockhopper penguin characterizes the population crash as 'sinister', as scientists are still baffled as to why almost 30% of the birds have vanished. From the article: "Grant Munro, the director of Falklands Conservation, said there were fears that rockhoppers might become extinct. 'If the present situation were to carry on then it's not a particularly great forecast. It doesn't look like they are suddenly going to start increasing in numbers ... In the Falklands, they are part of everyday life. If you head down to the beach you are going to see penguins.'"

Counting methods...

[advocate_one]

they are wondrously imprecise... barring actually going everywhere and penning them all and then counting them out of the pens, you could say anything you like about the total numbers...

just think of all the fudge factors they use as it is... x% assumed to be underwater catching fish, we've only counted them here and we'll assume things are the same over there...

the only thing you can say with certainty is that the scientists are earnestly trying to count them and they haven't found as many of them as previous guesstimation figured there would be

Food Chain

[Detritus]

What about the food chain? Is commercial fishing by humans affecting the penguin's food supply? Overfishing can have unanticipated effects on other species.

I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every species that thrives in its environment does so because it's reached an equilibrium with that environment. Change that environment, you start adding or eliminating vegetation, adding or eliminating predators, adding or eliminating their animal food supplies, etc. Never mind fucking up their mating, nesting, or hibernating patterns, or forcing them to adapt to new temperatures that conflict with what their bodies have evolved to be comfortable with.

I said "almost" above because there is one species that isn't content to thrive in its environment, but must constantly meddle with it and fuck it up. And that's our species, and that's because we're smart enough to create things that have awful biproducts, but stupid enough to believe those getting rich off the process that everything's going fine... just fine.

Tell that to the disappearing penguins. Tell that to the drowning polar bears. Tell that to extinct dolphins. Tell that to the Siberians who are getting more bear sightings than usual because it's too warm for hibernation.

Tell that to your GRANDCHILDREN. It used to be the older generation's fault for allowing this to happen. Now it's ours for not stepping up and showing the courage to take the drastic changes necessary to stop it.

Re:This is only news because they're cute.

[venicebeach]

If Penguins were featherless, covered in oozing mucous, constantly moaned in pain and had soulless empty sockets where their eyes should be we wouldn't care if they disappeared from the earth or not.

Thus the selective advantage of "cuteness". It the same mechanism used by our young to ensure we want to take care of them.

Re:Right

[rvw]

They aren't people, they're animals.

The animals aren't the problem here, the people are. So let's just call them "people", not "animals".

Re:Food Chain

[orkysoft]

How would that be unanticipated?

Species P has fish as its main food source.
Species H comes along and catches nearly all the fish.
Species P has a problem getting enough food, and diminishes in number.