Ocean Sentry
The Interior Department announced today that the New Zealand-Australia populations of the southern rockhopper penguin, among the world’s smallest penguins, will be listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The listing will raise awareness of the rockhoppers’ plight, increase research and conservation funds, and offer added oversight of U.S.-government-approved activities that could hurt the birds. It follows a legal settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN) over delays in protecting the penguin.
“These hardy penguins survive on remote, stormy, sub-Antarctic islands in the Southern Ocean, practically at the edge of the world, and yet they may not survive climate change,” said Catherine Kilduff, an attorney at the Center, which first petitioned to protect the rockhoppers and 11 other penguin species in 2006. “Endangered Species Act protections can begin to address this threat.”…
