Thousands of penguins have been discovered dead

Overfishing and severe weather have been blamed for the deaths of 2,000 baby Magellanic penguins.

Authorities told AFP on Friday that some 2,000 dead Magellanic penguins had washed up on the coast of Uruguay in the previous ten days, however the reason of death was unknown.

According to Carmen Leizagoyen, the head of the Environmental Ministry’s Department of Fauna, nine out of ten of the birds arrived with their bellies empty and their fat reserves exhausted.

Fears that the death toll was caused by avian flu were unwarranted, since none of the animals tested positive for the virus.

While a similar mass mortality occurred in Brazil last year, the causes remain unknown, and the amount of dead birds is far from average. “It is normal for some percentage to die, but not these numbers,” Leizagoyen explained.

Some environmental NGOs blame overfishing, pointing to the penguins’ starvation. According to Richard Tesoro of the NGO Marine Wildlife Rescue, the problem has existed since the 1990s.

“The resource is overexploited,” he told AFP, adding that petrels, albatrosses, sea lions, sea turtles, and seagulls have appeared on the beach in Uruguay’s Maldonado district.

Furthermore, a subtropical cyclone off the coast of southeastern Brazil earlier this month may have killed off already-weakened birds.

Magellanic penguins often move north from their breeding grounds in southern Argentina in search of food and warmer water.

In 2019, an intense heat wave killed around 300 Magellanic penguins at Punta Tombo, one of its greatest breeding colonies in Argentina’s Chubut Province. Temperatures reached 111.2 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius), preventing many of the birds from reaching the sea in time to adequately cool themselves before succumbing to dehydration.

Last year, hundreds of small blue penguins washed up on the shores of New Zealand, with the enormous die-off blamed to malnutrition as the fish they normally consume relocated to deeper seas owing to rising temperatures. While some blamed it on climate change, others argued that it was part of a natural cycle.