"Penguins are in trouble"

This from a sobering research report published last week (https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.13378) by some of the world’s leading experts on penguins. The report notes that “more than half of the world’s 18 penguin species are declining.”

The three species most in danger are:

African penguin

Galápagos penguin

Yellow-eyed penguin (seen below in New Zealand)

The report notes that there are only 1,700 pairs of yellow-eyed penguins left on our planet. Galápagos penguin could number fewer than that. And the African penguin, at 21,000 pairs, has seen its population drop from 1.5 million in the early 1900s. To call this an emergency is an epic understatement.

I wrote The Tourist Trail (https://ashlandcreekpress.com/books/touristtrail.html) because of penguins and whales, because I wanted to raise awareness of their plight and the heroic efforts of those who are trying to protect them.

But more important than the book, I also stopped eating seafood.

In the greater scheme, it’s a small thing to do. But if everyone did this small thing we would save millions of penguins, dolphins, albatross, and whales. Because even if they are not being fished to extinction, they are being bycaught to extinction.

The demand that we create fuels the decimation of oceans. We are the problem and we are the solution.

If you’ve given up on seafood, thank you. If you haven’t, please consider it.

If not for you, for the penguins.

Thanks for bringing  this up.  We are the solution. As you might know, penguins and other marine predators feed on anchovies and sardines. These fish are caught and shipped all over the world  to be turned into fishmeal. But I saw a video of a man who raises black soldier flies on a commercial scale to replace anchovies as the protein source in fish feed. The black soldier flies feed on restaurant waste and brewery waste. By supporting farms who use alternatives to like black soldier flies to feed their fish we can also reduce the pressure on fish stock while providing revenue to farmers