“Penguin Numbers Plummeting-Whales Partly to blame?” (Handwerk, Brian, National Geographic)

     The other day, I came across an article on the national geographic website that stated, “Penguin Numbers Plummeting-Whale Partly to blame?” This article captured my attention because it elaborated on how factors are affecting the birds’ primary food source, and causing their population to decline. Recently the penguin population has experienced a 50% drop during the last past three decades. This change in the birds’ is occurring in the West Antarctica Peninsula and the Scotia Sea. There are two contributing factors causing this dip in the birds’ population. One factor is krill shortage, these krill provides the vital food supply for the penguins. Without them the penguins will starve and die. The shortage in krill is partly caused by an increase in the air temperature. This change in air temperature affects the melting and freezing patterns of the ice and has a great impact on the krill’s diet (which primarily consists of phytoplankton). Another huge factor is the increase in whale population. This bring introduces stiff completion for the krill and causes there to be 80% less krill available for the animals (compared to 20 years ago).

     I think that this article presented some valuable information that greatly affects the living systems of these animals. Not only does this issue have a major impact on the animals, but it also shows that this issue has the potential to affect the lives of humans. I feel this way because we all know that global warming is a serious issue and that its affects are becoming more apparent. Now we see that because of the warming of the earth, the depletion of a whole bird population can occur unless we try to reverse its affects. The issue of the penguins’ population can encourage the discovery of alternate food sources for the penguins to deal with the short term problems of their food shortage. It also can help introduce ways to prevent further warming of the earth which can help decrease the risk of another population scare like the penguins in the future. This article left me wondering why there is such an unbalanced distribution of whales and how did humans allow this to happen. Because of prior knowledge, I am aware that the whale species where on the brink of extinction caused by human activities. I would like to find out how their population suddenly rebounded and became such a competitive species for the penguins’ food source.

    We need to find a way to save the krill population. Because without the krill present to provide food supply for smaller animals. Those smaller animals will die causing their predators to starve. Thus reoccurring series of negative things happening to an ecosystem is an example of the positive loop. Once we find a way to save the krill population then we can try to see if there are alternate food sources for both the penguins and the whales so that their population will not collapse due to an insufficient supply of krill as food. Once we stabilize these species’ population then we can look into further ways to prevent the decline of any other species due to global warming.

Handwerk, Brian (2011, April, 11). Penguin Numbers Plummeting-Whales Partly to blame? National Geographic. Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/04/110411-penguins-antarctica-decline-krill-whales-warming-environment-animals/