I did my news report on king penguins. King  Penguins may be in danger because of climate change. In a study published by Nature Climate Change, they warn that 70% of the 1.6 million estimated breeding pairs of king penguins could be affected in this century. That is very high number of penguins! although they are the second largest penguin species they are still in danger due to these climate changes. The problem is this: the king penguins live on islands near Antartica, the adult king penguins leave their offspring on the island to search for food. They leave their children for more than a week (a pretty long time for not eating!) to look for food in the polar front of the waters of the Antarctic. Which is an upwelling where cold, deep seas mix with temperate seas and this is where they find their food. As the temperature gets warmer the cold front is getting farther and farther from their habitat, leaving their offspring for longer periods of time. The concern is that their home will be too far away from the food source. Leaving their children for so long can cause their offspring to die. According the Emiliano Trucchi, which is one of the authors of this study says, ” they will need to either move somewhere else or they will just disappear.” Obviously this is very alarming because we’re talking about a whole species being extinct! Its sad to see that our impact on this world is affecting so many animals in a mostly negative way. Considering that these climate changes are mostly our fault I believe that we should work harder to conserve the lives of these animals and fix the problem that we’ve made. Fortunately the study gives us some hope. The research team developed a model and saw that because of climate change some islands will become vulnerable with warming and might become better habitats for the king penguins. This way the King penguins will be able to migrate to islands that are hospitable to them and that is closer to their food source. This seems to be a solution that makes sense and kind of solves itself. Even though this is only if the islands become warm enough for the penguins to live. Obviously since its just a prediction we are still not sure wether or not this will actually happen. I’ve tried to think of other ways to combat this issue but I have yet to come up with one that doesn’t invade the wildness of these animals. This study has also brought my attention to the rest of the species that will be affected if the King penguins do migrate or are extinct all together. The functions and mechanics of species and their surroundings are so interconnected that there is really no way to predict the outcomes of this change. These animals shouldn’t have to adjust their way of life because of humans. I think the human race are supposed to be the voice of this earth and all the living animals in it. Since we were entrusted with this Earth we should strive to protect and better it (also because its the only one we have).