This image made available by Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on Tuesday March 22, 2011 shows three oiled rock hopper penguins on the island chain of Tristan da Cunha. From U.S. news - Environment - msnbc.com
Thousands of endangered penguins have been coated with oil after a cargo ship ran aground and broke up on a remote British South Atlantic territory, officials and conservationists said Tuesday.
Tristan da Cunha's conservation officer, Trevor Glass, said oil was encircling Nightingale Island and called the situation "a disaster."
The territory's British administrator, Sean Burns, said more than half of about 500 birds gathered by rescue workers had been coated in oil. An environmentalist at the scene estimated that 20,000 penguins might be affected.
Tristan da Cunha is home to some 200,000 penguins, including almost half the world's total of northern rockhopper penguins. The bird is classed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
How many of these disasters must we experience before we halt our addictive dependency on oil? How much of the earth do we need to kill before we realize our own survival is dependent upon the species we are massacring to support our lifestyle?
