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Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
- alsetmusic 7mo agoIt’s surprising how much this headline affects me. Who doesn’t like penguins? And seals are nice, but penguins are so likeable. We’ve really ruined everything.
- nbbaier 7mo agoThis is the exact same reaction I had
- threethirtytwo 7mo ago[flagged]
- metabagel 7mo agoPink Floyd - Comfortably Numb (Recorded at Live 8) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_4uEaZQ2Kg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_4uEaZQ2Kg
- p-e-w 7mo agoAbout 15 years ago, I saw on the news in Europe that 8 students had been shot at some random high school in a random US state. Having been conditioned by my environment to perceive such events as important, I turned to my friend and said “Man, 8 students were shot at a high school in the States!” He asked me “What am I supposed to do with that information?” That response changed my life.
- threethirtytwo 7mo agoHow did it change your life?
- p-e-w 7mo agoIt made me realize that “important events” are meaningless empathy theater, with the goal of desensitizing people until they care more about random folks dying on the other side of the planet than about the person sitting next to them on the bench.
- threethirtytwo 7mo agoIt’s almost theater to care… the car accident rate is mass slaughter on a scale that dwarfs every school shooting on the planet yet nobody gives two shits. A lot of it is posing.
- Arodex 7mo agoSo, of course, after that "realization", now you do care about the person sitting next to you on the bench?
- Arodex 7mo ago>“What am I supposed to do with that information?” ...Feel some sorrow? Think a bit about what could cause such a thing? Because one day, it may happen at your kid's school... And it may be your own kid. An absence of both empathy and curiosity aren't exactly a response to be proud of. An unconscious life. The kind that leads to, one day, spouting the standard response: "I never imagined it could happen to me".
- p-e-w 7mo agoSorrow for people you don’t know? That’s a category error, and soundbites like that are a big part of the reason why many people now find it difficult to feel genuine sorrow.
- Arodex 7mo agoSorrow for your human brethren isn't a category error or a soundbite. It is basic decency. Or do you care only about your tribe? You can even feel something for animals. But thank you for another confirmation that the prevailing mindset in America today isn't the Western tradition of Humanism, but a regression towards raw egoism and naked psychopathy. Elon "Empathy is a weakness" Musk, Kristi "I shot my misbehaving puppy" Noem, Trump...
- threethirtytwo 7mo agoStop posing and pretending you care. You don't have the basic decency to care yourself. Don't go accusing others.
- timdiggerm 7mo agoIt's not as though people intentionally made these endangered because they have insufficient love for penguins. We have unintentionally done it because we have insufficient love (care) for them and many, many other things, creatures, people, etc.
- pstuart 7mo agoIt's because the people who get rich off of fossil fuels are in control, and they are willing to continue this damage as long as it adds to their personal fortunes. We could "manhattan project" ourselves out of this mess if we wanted to. China, in a sense, is doing just that.
- metabagel 7mo agoAlso this... "Trump Administration Seals Extinction Fate for Rice’s Whale in Offshore Drilling Decision" https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2026/03/trump-administration-seals-extinction-fate-rice-s-whale-offshore-drilling https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2026/03/trump-admi...
- Qem 7mo agoI get a bit of this looming feeling every time there is discussion about the Awk programming language, because it reminds me we already got the closest thing to a penguin in the nothern hemisphere extinct by the XIX century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk Hope this time around we do a better job of avoiding complete doom for these species.
- moffkalast 7mo agoIf a bird can't fly and isn't a super fast runner, they end up as food. Tale as old as time.
- bluefirebrand 7mo agoHave you seen a penguin swim though? They are super fast in water
- khrbrt 7mo agoThey're going extinct by habitat loss from climate change.
- alsetmusic 7mo agoDon't worry. That person doesn't believe in climate change. They probably also believe that vaccines kill us. That's why I've been dead for decades.
- moffkalast 7mo agoYou're jumping to some big conclusions there, I believe the exact opposite in fact. The IPCC report is always overly conservative and it's gonna be much worse than anyone thinks. Those birds are already dead, as well as most of us cause there's no convincing people to stop driving diesels for two hours every day and flying halfway across the planet for a vacation. I've stopped caring. Burn all the gas you want, blow up as many missiles as you like, it won't make much difference in the end. I bet some emus will survive though, tough bastards.
- srean 7mo agoSeals can be a bundle of cuteness. Leopard seals are impressive, in a different way. This indeed a sad story.
- bluefirebrand 7mo agoI love penguins, and this news has me close to tears My local zoo has a little event during winter where the king penguins get to go for a little walk around outside their enclosure. I've been a few times this year and they are just such fun animals. It has made me want to get involved with the zoo somehow, maybe not working with the animals directly but something. I don't know. It makes me so sad how we humans know that we are messing things up on the planet but we keep doing it anyways because the economy must grow
- yareally 7mo agoCincinnati Zoo? I saw them perform their march the other year. I think they stopped because the flock was getting too old https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2024/01/08/cincinnati-zoo-penguin-parades-tickets/72149154007/ https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2024/01/08/cincinnati-...
- bluefirebrand 7mo agoCalgary Zoo: https://www.calgaryzoo.com/events/penguin-walk/ https://www.calgaryzoo.com/events/penguin-walk/ It's a pretty fun little event. The penguins seem to really enjoy it, they're always checking out the crowd
- yareally 7mo agoThat's really cool! If I'm up near Calgary in the future I'm definitely checking that out. I miss the penguin march they would do here, but I understand why they stopped
- bluefirebrand 7mo agoIt's definitely worth the stop. The zoo here is pretty cool, even if the penguins don't go for their walk The Penguin walk doesn't run all year, something like Nov-March. It's ended for this year unfortunately
- milkytron 7mo ago[dead]
- popol12 7mo agoQuick, book a cruise to take some picture of them before they're all dead! \s
- wiseowise 7mo agoDon't forget to raise awareness on Instagram (and vote for parties that lead to this).
- oopsiremembered 7mo agoIce breaking up before the chicks can swim isn't even a threat to the penguin population I had considered, and now I am horrified and saddened.
- pbalau 7mo agoWhile not related to penguins, [0] is the saddest thing I ever saw. [0] https://youtu.be/qVJzQc9ELTE?si=R8K7ow2cuSuAOfex https://youtu.be/qVJzQc9ELTE?si=R8K7ow2cuSuAOfex
- lifeisstillgood 7mo agoIt’s terrible that the side effect of humans creating a world of wealth, safety and comfort (for all?) is that we risk destroying the very comfort we create - but it is also awesome that we have sufficient wealth to allow people to study these birds full time, enough wealth to build communication systems that tell random strangers about the threat they are under and hopefully enough time to correct the problem. I saw a speech by Carl Sagan that might be relevant - he said (sometime in 1990 judging by haircuts) that the US had spent 10 trillion dollars on defending itself from the threat of Soviet attack since 1945, but that the attack was not “certain” - not 100% sure. So if we were willing to spend trillions to prevent an uncertain catastrophe, why does the same logic not apply to climate chnage?
- oopsiremembered 7mo agoRight now, for many people, this falls into what Douglas Adams referred to as an SEP field. (SEP = Somebody Else's Problem)
- AndrewKemendo 7mo agoIf you want to be thoroughly depressed go ahead and reread Karl Sagan‘s 1996 book the Demon haunted world Literally everything he described in there is precisely the world we live in today
- dghlsakjg 7mo agoWhy? Many people do not see climate change as certain. Those same people have become convinced that all solutions to climate change involve their lives getting worse. Finally, for those who accept the science of climate change, the “what to do” is not obvious. In short: not everyone agrees it is a problem. Those that do, don’t agree on the mechanics of the solution.
- DarkmSparks 7mo ago"According to the IUCN Red List criteria, a species is generally classified as Endangered (EN) if its population of mature individuals falls below 2,500" Also IUCN, with only 180,000 individuals the Emperor penguin is now classified as Endangered. I think someone has been out hunting headlines.
- darth_avocado 7mo agoThat is objectively a wrong summary of how IUCN Red List is calculated. There’s a variety of factors including rate of decline, and any of those factors can lead to a species being in the Endangered category. https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/categories-and-criteria#:~:text=The%20publication%20is%20available%20in%20English%2C%20French%2C,Annex%203%20*%20Translations%20in%20additional%20languages https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/categories-and-criteri... No one is farming for headlines.
- DarkmSparks 7mo agothe article says 20,000 was 10% of the population therefore the population is 180,000. if "something might happen in the next 60 years to wipe out half the population" counts as making a species endangered, every species on the planet counts as endangered.
- darth_avocado 7mo agoPlease go ahead and read the criteria for how the species are tagged as endangered. Current status and population numbers can contribute to that tag, but if there are active threats that are going to rapidly affect healthy population numbers, they will still be considered endangered. The die off is accelerating. Krill shortages (mostly due to commercial fishing) and warming temperatures will ensure it’s not going to take 60 years and that’s what the tag means.
- DarkmSparks 7mo agoMeanwhile, some of us haven't forgotten https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/record-maximum-sea-ice-in-antarctic-does-not-disprove-global-warming https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/record-maximum-sea-ice-in... https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3613794165505253&set=gm.1369928463711758&idorvanity=420911468613467 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3613794165505253&set=gm...
- wiseowise 7mo agoClimate change is a hoax, those leftist penguins and marxist seals just want to hamper our great economy!
- vixen99 7mo agoThose penguins and seals are certainly being ignored by the world at large. Thanks to trillions of dollars the renewable revolution has proceeded apace since 2010-2015 but reduction in fossil fuel use has not occurred. Quite the reverse and overall total energy demand is now greater than ever before. And from all this one concludes . . . ?
- picafrost 7mo agoLife on this planet will be OK. Throughout geologic time countless species have gone extinct. The Anthropocene might be tragic for the natural world but not terminal. But: what are we trading it for? Higher living standards for more people is a noble and good but I don't think there's evidence it requires this rate of ecological destruction. Have we ever seriously tried to decouple growth from extraction? I'm not convinced a solar punk future exists where technology will eventually close that gap in time. Maybe it will. So far it seems that every efficiency gain gets swallowed by expanded consumption. What seems most probable now is that we don't get a better world but the same dirty one plus a Starbucks on Mars.
- metabagel 7mo agoPlus, we are in the process of making parts of the earth unlivable for humans.
- BurningFrog 7mo agoMost of the planet already is unlivable for humans.
- jerlam 7mo agoThe difference is that the parts we're making unlivable for humans already have millions of people living there already.
- metabagel 7mo ago> The Anthropocene might be tragic for the natural world but not terminal. I'm not so sure. I'm reminded of this quote: “How did you go bankrupt?" “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” ― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
- fiddeert 7mo ago[flagged]
- adrian_b 7mo ago
- metalman 7mo agoAll large land and sea animals are now in danger, except perhaps those that are in some sense semi domesticated, deer, coyotes, raccoons, etc, but the wild ones are dying out due to human competition for resources or there very bodys.
- johnwhitman 7mo ago[dead]