Program Night: Penguins as Sentinels

Penguins as Sentinels — Thursday, April 22, 7:00 p.m.

Northlake Unitarian Universalist Church

Join Dr. Dee Boersma, penguin researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle, as she

follows Magellanic penguins along the temperate southeastern coast of Argentina. Dr. Boersma holds the Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Studies, and is a 2009 winner of the prestigious Heinz Award. The online version of Conservation Magazine

(http://www.conservationmagazine.org) describes Dr. Boersma’s work as follows: “Dee Boersma has spent over 20 years studying Magellanic penguins in Punta Tombo, Argentina— long enough to suspect that their dramatic decline signals a more ominous truth: oceans are in trouble. From Africa to Antarctica, penguin populations are declining due to a conspiracy of human-induced environmental problems—including climate change, overfishing, and pollution—that have degraded penguin habitat, disrupted breeding grounds, and made it harder for the flightless birds to find food. Boersma argues that penguins’ problems are a key bellwether indicating that the marine environment is changing in ways that could threaten a vast number of today’s species. That’s bad news not only for penguins, but also for people.” This presentation is FREE and open to the public. Please invite a friend.

Photo: http://mesh.biology.washington.edu/

penguinProject/Center

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