click image for the story at MSNBC.com
Posted on 01/13/2011 7:10:05 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Longtime readers of WUWT may remember this story from 2008:
Nutty Story of the Day: “Global Warming” is Killing the Penguins in Antarctica
The root of this goes back as far as 2006, such as this MSNBC story:
click image for the story at MSNBC.com
Now it appears that assertion of a link between global warming and penguin deaths is dying faster than the penguins themselves. In what appears to be a manifestation of the observer effect problem in science (the act of observing changes the outcome) we have this article from the science journal Nature that says the act of tagging penguins so they can be tracked by researchers, seems to have a significant side effect on their life expectancy (mortality) and ability to reproduce. The article goes on to question a climate connection.
The cover page headline in Nature:
Flipper-banding reduces penguins fitness and skews climate data
Here’s a news story:
PARIS (AFP) – Tagging penguins with flipper bands harms their chances of survival and breeding, a finding which raises doubts over studies that use these birds as telltales for climate change, biologists said on Wednesday.
The metal bands, looped tightly around the top of the flipper where it meets the body, have long been used as a low-cost visual aid by researchers to identify individual penguins when they waddle ashore.
Foot tags are not used because of the penguin’s anatomical shape.
But, says the new study, the seemingly harmless bands affect the penguin’s swimming performance, causing it to waste more energy in foraging for food, sometimes with life-threatening consequences.
Publishing in the journal Nature, French and Norwegian scientists reported that they took 100 king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), selected at random on Possession Island on the Crozet archipelago, a sub-Antarctic group in the southern Indian ocean.
All were tagged with a minute, electronic transponder that was implanted under the skin, which can only be read by using specialist equipment placed close to the bird. Fifty of the 100 birds were additionally given a flipper band.
The team then recorded sightings of the group over the next 10 years.
Banded birds were 16 percent likelier to die than non-banded counterparts, and had 39 percent fewer chicks, they report.
“The picture is unambiguous,” researcher Yvon Le Maho told AFP. “Among banded penguins, the least-fit individuals died out in the first five years of the study, which left super-athletic birds.
“In the remaining five years, the mortality rate between the two groups was the same, but the reproductive success of banded penguins was 39 percent lower on average.”
Le Maho said he had warned many years ago against banding penguins on ethical grounds but was sidelined. Opponents argued that the birds were not affected by the practice or got used to the tag after a year or so.
The latest findings, though, are unequivocal, he said.
Entire story here
Here’s a video from Nature on the issue:
You can add “Penguins killed by AGW” to the trashbin along with the now disproven Frogs being killed by AGW hype.
Oh and let’s not forget the fact that the whole of the continent of Antarctica has been shown not to have any statistically significant warming (except in the peninsula, which may be affected by weather station issues, since most Antarctic weather stations are near a warm pocket of humanity, i.e. researchers) by our skeptical scientist friends Jeff Condon and Ryan O’Donnell.
Condon and O"Donnell's Antarctic temperature profile, 2010
Real Climate's Dr. Eric Steig's version, 2009 - from the cover of Nature
Yeah, it’s all about the warming in Antarctica, it couldn’t possibly be anything else.
On this website the comments are always worth reading .....
Thanks E. I was going to go to site later in any case. I usually hit it at least four or five times a week out of habit.
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Speed says:
It’s worse than the report. From the Knight Science Journalism Tracker and Seth Borenstein …
However…ahem. The paper and Nature’s summary for reporters both say that flipper-banded penguins had a 16 percent lower ten-year survival rate. By contrast, the accompanying data results table says that chances of surviving for ten years fell from 0.36 to 0.20. Well, subtract those two and one does get 0.16 or 16 points difference, but as our alert AP man saw, what’s important is not that the rate fell 16 points but that 0.20 is about a 44 percent drop from 0.36
http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/2011/01/13/lots-of-inumerate-ink-penguins-suffer-when-tagged-do-the-math-most-journos-didnt/
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Jim Steele says:
The parallels to researchers spreading the chytrid fungus yet not taking better precautions is a sad tale. But I think in general most researchers try to be aware when they are having an adverse effect.
I am bothered more by the fact that while the ice loving Penguins were declining on the peninsula, where the warm waters of the polar front come closest to the Antarctic continent, The colonies of ice loving Penguins have tripled in the Ross Sea.
This paradox growing populations was mentioned in a recent article in Science on the state of our oceans, but simply dismissed, claiming that “our models say it will warm there soon”. So they then went on to hype only the declining populations.
Thanks Ernest. That reminds me, I have to get the tux drycleaned.
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Ric Werme says:
From http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/68666/title/Marking_penguins_for_study_may_do_harm
In a swimming test in a tank, an Adélie penguin wearing a band expended 24 percent more energy than an unbanded penguin.
That’s huge! I’d imagine it also implies the penguins bring back less food
because they need some of the calories.
Biologists are studying penguins to understand the effects of climate change on life in Antarctica, but in the new study researchers found that environmental conditions affected banded birds more severely than their unbanded counterparts. For example, during the warmer phases of the El Niño climate cycle, when the seafood that penguins eat is scarce, the banded birds showed an even greater tendency than usual to arrive late at breeding grounds.
They usually arrive late? Perhaps “usual” isn’t El Niño.
Our liberal local transplanted do-gooders decided to study them....They captured them and tagged them with a wire with a number on it...
with in a week the locals noticed all the dead horseshoe crabs when the tide went out....Seems that tag would get hung up on the seaweed and the crab was left to death spiral around the seaweed.....
it was reported to officials and within 2 days the “Official website” and all information on the project disappeared...NOT A WORD WAS EVER RELEASED...
I suspect the Horseshoe crab that had survived for millions of years is now truly endangered.... every single one that was tagged died!
So those good feeling scientist, are killing off the birds. Al must be proud of them.
I learned in Geology class long ago that a warmer earth will result in a greater diversification of the species on the earth.
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George E. Smith says:
Well in keeping with Smith’s first Law of survival (out in the ocean); to whit:- “There ain’t no such thing as 75% of Top Speed !”
Guess which Emperor Penguins the Leopard Seals will target, as catchable snacks on the hoof ?
You wanna bet me; that Jane Goodall, and her tribe of students; have NOT impacted the lives and behavior of the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee population. I’m not being critical of her; her “discoveries” have been mind boggling; but are they Chimps in the wild, or wily quick learners.
I can remember when we used to pop the lids off the top of Baja rock oysters, in our snorkel gear, and watch the Sergeant Majors dart in to scarf up the oyster out of its shell. Total training period for a new school of SMs; two oysters max; and then they would be gathered at the next oyster waiting for the magic screwdriver to pop the top.
So Heisenberg was right; in the act of studying our subject, we change its behavior.
Tagged penguins could skew climate studies - scientists
****************************************************
Wed Jan 12, 2:01 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – Tagging penguins with flipper bands harms their chances of survival and breeding, a finding which raises doubts over studies that use these birds as telltales for climate change, biologists said on Wednesday.
The metal bands, looped tightly around the top of the flipper where it meets the body, have long been used as a low-cost visual aid by researchers to identify individual penguins when they waddle ashore.
Foot tags are not used because of the penguin's anatomical shape.
But, says the new study, the seemingly harmless bands affect the penguin's swimming performance, causing it to waste more energy in foraging for food, sometimes with life-threatening consequences.
Publishing in the journal Nature, French and Norwegian scientists reported that they took 100 king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), selected at random on Possession Island on the Crozet archipelago, a sub-Antarctic group in the southern Indian ocean.
All were tagged with a minute, electronic transponder that was implanted under the skin, which can only be read by using specialist equipment placed close to the bird. Fifty of the 100 birds were additionally given a flipper band.
The team then recorded sightings of the group over the next 10 years.
Banded birds were 16 percent likelier to die than non-banded counterparts, and had 39 percent fewer chicks, they report.
"The picture is unambiguous," researcher Yvon Le Maho told AFP. "Among banded penguins, the least-fit individuals died out in the first five years of the study, which left super-athletic birds.
"In the remaining five years, the mortality rate between the two groups was the same, but the reproductive success of banded penguins was 39 percent lower on average."
Le Maho said he had warned many years ago against banding penguins on ethical grounds but was sidelined. Opponents argued that the birds were not affected by the practice or got used to the tag after a year or so.
The latest findings, though, are unequivocal, he said.
They add to small-scale studies on captive Adelie penguins that suggest these birds -- which beat their flippers about three times a second when swimming -- lose up to 24 percent of their power when banded.
Le Maho said that banded penguins in his study arrived much later (16 days later on average) at breeding grounds compared with non-banded counterparts.
Late arrival is a known factor for poor breeding success, for chicks that are born later are nurtured in harsher weather and there are more predators around to grab them.
Birds failing in reproduction also spent five days longer at sea foraging for food for their chicks -- 21 days against 16 days -- and this again can be pinned on impeded swimming, he said.
Worried about ethical concerns, some research institutions abandoned banding in the late 1980s, but "massive banding schemes" continued, says the paper.
Penguins sometimes feature in climate research as tool for measuring the impact of global warming on cold-water wildlife.
But such studies may now have to be reviewed, for penguin population data could be skewed by flipper banding, says the paper.
"During the course of our study, when the sea temperature was low and food resources were abundant, there was virtually no difference between banded and non-banded birds," explained Claire Saraux, like Le Maho a member of France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
"However, when there was a rise in sea temperature and food was less abundant, the penguins had to swim farther, and banded penguins stayed longer at sea to forage compared with non-banded birds."
This is a wonderful example of do-gooders in action. Thanks for that bit. Is there anything published anywhere? Should be.
But I wonder how many Monarch's aren't going to make it to Mexico with all that drag on their wings
You'll love this quote....”From the animals tagged in 2001, 9% returned in 2002. Many fewer horseshoe crabs were seen in 2002, but whether this represents a sharp decline in the population, or a normal fluctuation for a natural population of the species, is unknown at this time. Each additional season of data improves our understanding”
Needless to say...the "study" was stopped and disappeared down the memory hole in 2002 when the dead crabs were reported attached to the seaweed by the locals that actually work the flats and waters of Taunton Bay....... according to the report, it was funded by the Maine Coastal Program, Maine Sea Grant, and Sweet Water Trust.
Thank you very much for the information. Maybe you could post the report?
Thanks.
the pulled topic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2657376/posts
Right Wing Professor’s ‘blog entry:
Climate change doesn’t kill penguins, climate scientists kill penguins
http://homepage.mac.com/gerardharbison/blog/RWP_blog.html#ilc316725427
the Nature paper:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v469/n7329/full/nature09630.html
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