SAVE THE PENGUINS!

   I saw an article linked from TreeHugger called "More Than Half of Penguin Species are Under Threat".

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/travel-outdoors/more-than-half-of-penguin-species-are-under-threat.html

I immediatly had to read this since penguins are my favorite animal.  The article stated that at the International Penguin Conference they announced that 10 out of 18 penguin species are experiencing population decline and many things are threatening their survival.

   One thing threatening them is over-fishing.  Many people use anchovy and sardines for fishing bait, taking away from the penguins food supply.  The penguins are also getting caught in fishing nets and dying. 

   Another thing killing them is climate change.  Many penguin species are highly dependent on small schooling fish for food. When the climate changes it can affect the migratory patterns of  fish, which makes it harder for the penguins to find food. 

   Also, the pollution from oil companies is killing off penguins.  Chronic petroleum pollution has killed thousands of penguins off the coasts of South America and South Africa. This comes from illegal operational dumping from ships, long term leaks from sunken ships and some land-based discharges. 

   The last way that penguins are being killed is by predation by introduced mammals.  Penguin populations of places like New Zealand, Australia and Argentina are being attacked by mammals such as weasels, feral cats and foxes.

   This relates to class because we were talking about pollution and changes in the global climate, and both of these things effect the penguins way of living. We need to do something to save the penguins! We could use different bait when we fish so that we dont take their food.  We could also get oil companies to stop dumping their products illegally into the waters.  If we dont do something to stop this, many penguin species will be facing extinction by the end of the 21st century.