The stars of March of the Penguins, Emperor Penguins, are poised to suffer extinction by the end of this century, say researchers.
We
can blame the usual suspect--global warming--for melting too much ice
in Antarctica. If significant reductions in global warming are not
reached soon, the pattern of ice melt will shrink the penguins' habitat
dangerously. It is estimated that one penguin colony under study would
decline from 3,000 to 400 mating pairs.
It is not just that
shrinking ice floes would leave the penguins nowhere to stand. The
penguins' primary food source is krill that lives on the underside of
the ice. As the ice melts, the krill decline and so do the many
animals that eat it, including penguins.
Stories like this depressed me before I had children. But now that I do,
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