It is impossible to judge exactly how global warming will affect all of us. This includes remote populations of plants and animals, many of which could be important in predicting how climate is changing. We now know just how complex the rainfall, the temperatures, the sea ice and the desertification can become.
Many levers have been tried in establishing conservation aims. This series of really cold swims will test to see if the Antarctic can be maintained as a pollution and overfishing-free zone. That is certainly the way it should remain, but greed can always be counted as a major factor in human affairs.
The Antarctic is, or was, the unspoilt continent. To preserve some of its pristine condition, it should be quite easy to keep the oil, the mining the fishing and, most of all, the greed at arms length. For the sake of penguins and healthy, sustainable fish stocks, we have to start this difficult process.
The giant penguins are on the march. There are now several recognised species, each with a different niche connected with the food-rich Antarctic seas. The newest species benefits from having more fossil remains than most, so we can hope to see more remains in the future, giving us better ideas on how these amazing birds looked, evolved and why they died out, millions of years ago.
It isn't just us who suffer badly from climate change and global warming. Although some species are thriving, many, such as the emperor penguin, are subject, both now and in the near future to multiple threats, leading to their extinction.
The sub-Antarctic islands hold large populations of king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) but Crozet Island king penguins have been reproducing less successfully, possibly associated with warming conditions.
Years after a fossilised penguin skeleton was found in New Zealand, scientists say it belonged to possibly the tallest ever prehistoric penguin; Kairuku grebneffi stood almost five feet tall.
Macquarie Island was used as a penguin blubber oil extraction site. Efforts by conservationists have helped King Penguin populations recover in both number and genetic diversity. The Macquarie Island ghosts of the King Penguin.
A mini-submarine, shaped like a penguin, has been created by a German university team to dive 6,000 metres and locate amazing deep-sea creatures and valuable raw materials.
New research shows for the first time that penguins use scent to tell one another apart and avoid interbreeding. Scientists at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Zoological Society report that penguins use a highly-developed sense of smell to identify their kin, thus avoiding interbreeding with relatives.
A penguin found thousands of miles off course in New Zealand will be tracked online as he returns to the deep south. 'Happy Feet', a juvenile Emperor Penguin, was washed up on Peka Peka beach close to Wellington in June, around 3,000 miles from where he should have been.
Penguin found washed up on New Zealand's coast could be released into wild or kept in captivity. The fate of a juvenile Emperor Penguin found washed up on a New Zealand beach has gripped the country and its media.
In a wildlife spectacle, a massive aggregation of over 300 humpback whales followed the biggest swarm of Antarctic krill seen in twenty years into bays in the Western Antarctic peninsula. The humpbacks were gorging on swarms of the tiny shrimp-like crustaceans. Almost all life in the Southern Ocean is ultimately dependent on the protein-rich crustaceans, from seabirds, seals and penguins, to the filter feeding whales.
A colony of endangered Northern Rockhopper penguins is facing a grim future after a ship grounded on an important breeding island in the South Atlantic Ocean. The remoteness of the Tristan islands and the fact that there is no air field on any of the islands has caused major headaches for the oil spill management efforts.
Antarctic penguin numbers have more than halved since the 1980's, in tandem with their favourite food. Krill densities are down almost 80%, largely due to climate change reducing winter ice cover in this fast-warming region.
'Naked' chicks are suddenly appearing in penguin colonies in South Africa and Argentina, leaving scientists perplexed. The bald penguin chicks have a condition called feather-loss disorder. Although all penguins are born with downy feathers, some chicks inexplicably 'moult' their down before their adult feathers arrive, leaving them temporarily bald.
The wreckage of a cargo vessel that has grounded off a South Atlantic Island is causing an impending environmental disaster, threatening one of the world's most endangered penguins. 1500 tonnes of heavy crude oil has spilled into the sea.
We present some business ideas for those of you who think that the future is greener than the present- we can think of some who don't ---. The advice is general and does not apply exclusively to any one nation.
We use the tiger (this is a prime Siberian example) to show up our failure to conserve wild species, but while we monopolise all the food that animals require, we could remember that it is not only their conservation we urgently need to cover. It is also our own indulgences.
How can you describe the threats existing to species, both large and small? Using the highly-threatened primates, we can perhaps see how they have contrived to exist until the current time. Then we can better understand just how we can prevent factors simply wiping them from the face of the earth, often through ignorance, lack of care, prejudice and of course the universal profit motive. Conservation begins in our minds, but demands much more than that.
The future is certainly renewable, but are we too late to prevent future centuries problems of global warming- and the rest! Here are some current US solutions to waste and warming for you to enjoy---there are some ads in this piece but weve allowed them for one blog only.
Need to save money after the spending boom to end them all? Here are 2 sets of opinions on how to pull out the plugs at night at least.
When dolphins are 'rescued' in various countries, the car given seems to be ill-considered. We are simply looking at the success rate which is reported to be low, in most places. They could even end up in commercial aquarium shows, but they certainly rarely make it back to the sea.
