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Comment by alsetmusic | Hacker News Reader

It’s surprising how much this headline affects me. Who doesn’t like penguins? And seals are nice, but penguins are so likeable. We’ve really ruined everything.

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I get a bit of this looming feeling every time there is discussion about the Awk programming language, because it reminds me we already got the closest thing to a penguin in the nothern hemisphere extinct by the XIX century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk

Hope this time around we do a better job of avoiding complete doom for these species.

If a bird can't fly and isn't a super fast runner, they end up as food. Tale as old as time.

Have you seen a penguin swim though? They are super fast in water

They're going extinct by habitat loss from climate change.

Don't worry. That person doesn't believe in climate change. They probably also believe that vaccines kill us. That's why I've been dead for decades.

You're jumping to some big conclusions there, I believe the exact opposite in fact. The IPCC report is always overly conservative and it's gonna be much worse than anyone thinks. Those birds are already dead, as well as most of us cause there's no convincing people to stop driving diesels for two hours every day and flying halfway across the planet for a vacation. I've stopped caring. Burn all the gas you want, blow up as many missiles as you like, it won't make much difference in the end.

I bet some emus will survive though, tough bastards.

> While you abide on this island you are in the constant practice of horrid cruelties for you not only skin them Alive, but you burn them Alive also to cook their Bodies with. You take a kettle with you into which you put a Penguin or two, you kindle a fire under it, and this fire is absolutely made of the unfortunate Penguins themselves. Their bodies being oily soon produce a Flame; there is no wood on the island.

Oh dear god.

Just made me remember that my awk programming book has a penguin. Now I'm sad two times! Sorry, "Effective awk Programming"[0]

0. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL26353120M/Effective_awk_Prog...

Also this...

"Trump Administration Seals Extinction Fate for Rice’s Whale in Offshore Drilling Decision"

https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2026/03/trump-admi...

Seals can be a bundle of cuteness. Leopard seals are impressive, in a different way.

This indeed a sad story.

I love penguins, and this news has me close to tears

My local zoo has a little event during winter where the king penguins get to go for a little walk around outside their enclosure. I've been a few times this year and they are just such fun animals. It has made me want to get involved with the zoo somehow, maybe not working with the animals directly but something. I don't know.

It makes me so sad how we humans know that we are messing things up on the planet but we keep doing it anyways because the economy must grow

Cincinnati Zoo? I saw them perform their march the other year. I think they stopped because the flock was getting too old

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2024/01/08/cincinnati-...

Calgary Zoo: https://www.calgaryzoo.com/events/penguin-walk/

It's a pretty fun little event. The penguins seem to really enjoy it, they're always checking out the crowd

That's really cool! If I'm up near Calgary in the future I'm definitely checking that out. I miss the penguin march they would do here, but I understand why they stopped

It's definitely worth the stop. The zoo here is pretty cool, even if the penguins don't go for their walk

The Penguin walk doesn't run all year, something like Nov-March. It's ended for this year unfortunately

This is the exact same reaction I had

It's not as though people intentionally made these endangered because they have insufficient love for penguins. We have unintentionally done it because we have insufficient love (care) for them and many, many other things, creatures, people, etc.

It's because the people who get rich off of fossil fuels are in control, and they are willing to continue this damage as long as it adds to their personal fortunes.

We could "manhattan project" ourselves out of this mess if we wanted to. China, in a sense, is doing just that.

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