Unhappy feat: biologists baffled as millions of penguins vanish
IAN JOHNSTON
ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT (ijohnston at scotsman.com)

HOLLYWOOD has turned them into the cartoon stars of the film Happy Feet, but
the real life story of the rockhopper penguin is not such a happy tale,
scientists have discovered.

Millions of the birds are disappearing in a "sinister and astonishing"
phenomenon that is baffling biologists.

In just six years their numbers have fallen from 600,000 to 420,000 in the
Falkland Islands - one of its few remaining strongholds - according to the
latest survey by Falklands Conservation.

The decline equates to a drop of about 30 per cent, although the Falklands
population is thought to have dipped by about 85 per cent since 1932, when
there were more than 1.5 million birds.

It is thought that global warming may be behind its decline, as warmer seas
are less productive and the penguins may not be able to find enough food to
eat, but researchers admit they have not yet established the reasons.

Dr Geoff Hilton, an RSPB biologist who has studied the species, said: "It's
actually quite rare in conservation that we don't know why a species is
declining.

"All around the world from New Zealand to the Falklands there used to be all
these huge colonies. Populations separated by 1,000km of sea are all
crashing.

"It's an astonishing decline, the populations have just crashed over the
last few decades and we really don't know why. It's quite sinister, we have
got millions of penguins just disappearing."

Full story at
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1905342006


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