Credit, Willis and Moshpit
Polar bear icon photoshopped.
Penguin icon dying of the cold.
They are left with whale poo.
From news24.com
Pretoria – Nearly 500 African penguins died in 24-hours because of cold and wet weather at Algoa Bay in the Eastern Cape, SA National Parks (SanParks) said on Tuesday.
SanParks spokesperson Megan Taplin said: “The chicks, aged between a few weeks and two months, are covered only with down feathers. They succumbed to the cold and wet weather that has hit Bird Island.”
It was common for a third of a penguin population’s chicks to die in such weather conditions, she said.
However, with only 700 breeding pairs of African penguins on Bird Island, the death of over half the populations’ chicks presents an “added threat” to the dwindling numbers of penguins.
The African penguin was recently reclassified as an endangered species because of its declining population across South Africa.
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Richard111 says:
June 22, 2010 at 5:10 am
“I lived in Port Elizabeth from 1978 – 88 and often sailed around Bird Island.
During that 10 year period I never once experienced freezing temperatures.
So what’s changed?”
Me: It’s the sun. There’s something wrong with it and its getting smaller and cooler and no sunspots and it will be the cause of another ice-age, the little one I mean. So, what had cause gobal warming will cause global cooling, and warming, and cooling and…………………………climate change. Read here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wrong-with-the-sun.html
I keep explaining that CO2 acts as a near-surface coolant in a freely-convective atmosphere due to its relative specific heat and rate of thermal expansion.
Now, will they believe me? 🙂
[Well they shouldn’t because of the penguins.]
CTM,
I don’t think that Tux is of the same variety of Penguin as the poor African Penguin, but he sure is an Open Source one 😉 .
Now back on topic, please send more money to the African Penguin Rescue Association it is far worse than we thought.
Meanwhile, my son the avid fisherman in central Florida tells me he hasn’t caught a single fish this summer. The cold weather in Jan-Feb apparently killed a lot of them off.
It’s sad that the chicks froze to death. Hopefully there are fishing quotas to leave behind enough food for them to recover their numbers.
This story appeared on the local news here in SA and it was stated that the population suffered because a drought prior to this cold snap prevented growth of terrestrial vegetation and hence nest building material and shelter was diminished which meant the penguins were more exposed and couldn’t make it… a fact which was ommitted from this post.
So perhaps we can blame this on global warming 😉
Here in KwaZulu Natal we are having a brutal winter, many low temp records have been broken and it is extremely miserable! The world cup is keeping us happy though 🙂
It is sad… more evidence of Climate Change…
ANTHONY, I always look forward to your sea ice news, but this week you didn’t have any ‘sea ice news!’ Why is that?
-Snowlover123
Bilderberg is on the case, looking at Global Cooling
Remember! Extinction is evolution in action.
When I saw Tux I got my hopes up for a story on Linux, only to have it dashed by a story about a stupid fish-eating bird. BTW, its not that uncommon for colonies to loose a most of their chicks in some years. Running out with space heaters and bird parkas does nothing to strengthen the population, just makes it dependent on human intervention. What are these people, socialists?
PS Have anyone noticed that about the only time a fresh water fish is filmed in a nature documentary ( other then piranha), it is being eaten by some stupid bird?
As what is left of the ocean heat content dissipates before our eyes, now possibly the collapse of the NH jet stream.
https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/efs/cgi-bin/efs_loop.cgi?strt=0&incr=24&stop=240&imagePrefix=US058VMET-GIFwxg.EFS.nh_sc_5640_&title=EFS%20500%20HPa%20Single%20Contour%20Probability
Whats next?
And the African Polar Bears are already extinct! Oh My!
they were Denier Penguins, so it doesn’t matter.
Lank says:
June 21, 2010 at 11:01 pm
I’d hate to think of the catastropic consequences of another ice age! Back to the Dark Ages and beyond for us humans!!
Or even back to the cave age. Underground would be one of the few places to escape it.