One hundred years ago, colorful canaries warned humans of the hidden hazards of digging for coal by riding shotgun down the mine and dropping dead.
Now, penguin experts say these birds that move like tuxedoed toddlers are showing us the hidden hazards of burning coal and other fossil fuels by the way they march. And as global warming changes the survival-of-the-fittest game at the bottom of the world, one particular species of Antarctic penguin is modeling a poignant lesson for humanity:
Adapt or die…and make it quick.
With numbers in the millions, Antarctica’s six species of waddling aquabats are far from extinction and as I stepped foot on the Antarctic peninsula in early March, and drank in the wildest place I’ve ever seen, there were hundreds there to make an adorable first impression. Colonies were brimming with life.
