King penguins under threat of climate change

The Antarctic Polar Front, a nutrient-rich band of water where King penguins find most of their food, is moving away from places where the penguins can breed, which means that the birds will have to swim longer and farther to get their nourishment. The Front is steadily moving more inward to the South Pole, and these penguins breed on ice-free islands, of which there are few, located north of the Pole. These animals will either have to adapt to travelling larger distances every day or relocate to islands farther inward. It is possible that the more southern islands will become habitable for the penguins due to global warming, but nature would have to time it just right, so that by the time the new islands are ice-free, the food source will still not have passed too far away. Scientists estimate this product of climate change could severely impact most of the world's King penguin population by the end of the century. Researchers are encouraging conservation efforts and working on a model to show the effects of the Front's movement on other Antarctic species.

This relates to Theodore Roosevelt's encouragement of the protection and conservation of wildlife. The thinning of the ozone layer and the swift changes to the global climate have affected every living thing on Earth, and have led to drops in numbers of some species and alterations to the natural landscape. Roosevelt advocated strongly for respect for nature and implemented practices and created agencies to do anything that man could do to help the environment. We cannot go back and erase the damage that has already been done, but we can look toward clean, renewable energy sources and limit the burning and frivolous extraction of fossil fuels. Most people, including some of our Congressmen, don't particularly care about what happens to some penguins on the other side of the Earth, but some day, it will be humans who are having to pay for neglecting the needs of the world we live in. It is likely that when they realize this it will already be too late.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/26/588811506/scientists-predict-king-penguins-face-major-threats-due-to-climate-change