Jeanne Chrisanthopoulos
Current Event #2
The Loss of an Iconic Penguin
The most iconic and largest seabird is known as the Emperor Penguin, located in Antarctica. Tragically these beautiful creatures
may soon disappear from Terre Adelie in East Antarctica according to vast studies by the researchers from WHOI. This is due to temperatures slowly rising and greenhouse gases, the sea ice gradually melts in this region; this has been scientifically researched by Stephanie Jenouvrier, a biologist. Without stable sea ice the Emperor penguins will no longer be able to breed and raise their babies, so having sea ice is detrimental to breeding and their lives would result in a catastrophe. The Emperor penguin feeds on fish, squid and krill, and these species feed on plankton attached to the sea ice, therefore, the supply of food would be limited with less ice. It is a chain reaction: as the ice depletes, the food supply decrease, as does the population of Emperor penguins.
Due to the extensive research of biologist Jenouvrier, studies show that these penguins will continue to diminish a lot until 2040 because of the sea ice shrinking. "Roughly 500 to 600 breeding pairs will remain by the year 2100" while today population size is around 3,000 breeding pairs (Jenouvrier). This clearly shows a fast decrease, and part of this catastrophe is our fault. Normally "only 50 percent of chicks survive to the end of the breeding season" so if the environment becomes particularly hard to live with, the number will continue to decrease (Jenouvrier). Emperor penguin research is continued using the method of tagging, where scientists capture the birds and specially mark them by setting a Passive Inductive Transponder under the skin and then setting them free; this is in order to keep track of the amount of penguins and know of their survival.
Man-made greenhouse gas emissions frequently cause environmental problems, and in this situation Emperor penguins are mainly being impacted but in the near future other animals living in Antarctica could be effected. If we do not figure out a way to raise awareness of this situation and what it will call, humans will continue to be the cause of global warming which resulted in the ice breakage. Not only species in Antarctica will be effected, but this will continue around the world; this will effect our environment and lifestyle including the food chain. Since this is a man-made contributed issue we have the power to reverse it.
This article stood out to me because penguins and ducks are my favorite animals. Although it is an article relating to both biology and earth science I believe it covered the earth science topic well. This article was well written and showed me about how detrimental keeping our environment clean is. The way the article is composed allows for an easy comprehension of the text. I think this article should have had more sources (scientist’s opinions) in order to reinforce the information.
Works Cited
Levin, David. "The Decline and Fall of the Emperor Penguin?" : Oceanus Magazine. N.p., 12 December. 2013. Web. 15 Jan. 2014. <http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-emperor-penguin>.
This was such an interesting, and unfortunately kind of sad, article to read. As an animal lover, it is very sad to read about animals becoming extinct because of the changed that are happening to our planet mostly because of us. It's so interesting to learn just how important ice is to so many creatures in the world. A seemingly abundant resource is now disappearing and there isn't that much we can do about it now to change it. It's so upsetting to hear that this bread of animal will diminish greatly in the next hundred years. I enjoyed how you talked about the long term affects of these changes that are happening to our planet and how animals going extinct in turn changes the whole food change. My only critic is that there were a few spelling errors and I would have wanted to hear more about your own opinion on this article. Overall, this was a very interesting article that definitely catches one's attention and I thought your review of it was great.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Nicolette, your article was really interesting to read, while also depressing. We don't really think about the global warming as often as we should or the affects it is having on animals such as emperor penguins, which you're focusing on.You presented your article well in a brief summary, which gave me more or less the general idea your article was based on. I thought your analysis as to why this is important to society was thought provoking and also well written. I learned some pretty intriguing facts from your article like emperor penguins food sources depend on a plankton attached to sea ice. This article is a really good example of how one thing offsets one species that it affects others as well. The only suggestion I have to make your article better is by improving the slight spelling and grammatical errors within the article, other than that I thought your writing style as well as your topic were really great.
ReplyDeleteAlong with the other people who commented on this post, I also feel that this is such a heartbreaking article. It certainly is alarming and really makes you think twice as we often go through the day not once coming across the thought of global warming having such a significant impact on animals. The summary of the article was brief and acute which was good because it was more easy to understand the main idea. This article made an impact because it seems for now there is not much we can do about the resources for these penguins that keep vanishing. I don't really have any critique apart from slight grammatical/spelling errors, which aren't too important because the topic was more important.
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