Penguins’ plight is a warning for us all
News Item: Cable Bay residents outraged at mass dumping of dead penguins on DoC Track.
This is the third incident involving little blue penguins being washed up on Tokerau Beach in the last six weeks. A DoC spokesperson said: “It is a seasonal event due to La Nina conditions which bring increased seasurface temperatures and on-shore winds to New Zealand.
“They make it more challenging for korora to nest and feed. When the sea temperature is warm, the cooler water that’s down below the surface does not mix with the surface water as much, so there is no mixing of nutrients in the surface water. So the whole food chain is impacted, meaning less fish and less food for penguins.
“It is a consequence of the weather and its relation to climate change. Climate change is likely to lead to the La Nina weather pattern becoming more frequent. In the long term it is likely to make it more difficult for penguins in the Northland region.” ( Northern Advocate, June 13).
We read that up at Cable Bay sea birds from hunger fade away: korora can’t cavort, survive in Northland waters warmed to drive their numbers down to desperate depths as fish abscond with precious left to fill the puku, fuel the engines of malnutritionfamished penguins . . . With fish now missing from the menus — swimming off to distant venues where seas are cold and suit them more than tepid baths on northern shores. This crisis is a litmus test of higher temperatures suggest that global warming’s here to stay no matter what the sceptics say.
A pile of penguins on a track’s a sign that desperate times are back.
If penguins cannot cope in oceans as mankind, passive, goes through motions we’ll find our fragile ecosystem expires for lack of foresight, wisdom.
Dithering on greenhouse gases inflicts infernos, fans impasses. Korora, ‘smoked’, without a choice should prod all folk to lift their voice with urgency to solve dilemmas will curse us with the role of lemmings.
Tony Clemow Kamo
Right wing danger
I can see a whole reversal of policies coming if the right wing parties are elected next year and all of the catch up benefits that Northland is beginning to build up now, and will enjoy in the future, will be cancelled and the money spent on researching them wasted. These will include new hospital, rail links, ship building and port development Provincial Growth Funding and many more.
Instead we will be promised a four
lane highway that will take decades to complete, (how long has the Puhoi link taken to build) so there are more crashes. And more money for road maintenance. More carbon footprints. One rail would be far more effective.
Nicola Willis sidestepped the refinery issue issue well without any solution to the inflationary rise in diesel and cost of fuel.
We will go back to cuts in spending, private public partner projects that are ultra slow in completion, tax cuts for wealthy and an ever-widening poverty gap, more land and water pollution and poorer outcomes for Māori and Pasifika.
Beware of promises, that will be just that, empty!
Marie Kaire Ngararatunua