Multitudes of dead penguins washed up on the shores of Uruguay Berlin’s lioness is probably just a wild boar after all

About 2,000 dead penguins have been found on the east coast of Uruguay in recent days. 90 percent of them are young Magellanic penguins.

These died in the Atlantic Ocean and then washed up on the beaches of the administrative districts of Canelones, Maldonado and Rocha, the responsible representative of the Ministry of the Environment, Carmen Leizagoyen, told the AFP news agency Friday (local time).

So the young penguins had no fat reserves and empty stomachs. The causes of the mass deaths were initially unclear. The bird flu virus was not found in any of the cadavers, Leizagoyen emphasized.

Similar deaths in Brazil

Magellanic penguins breed in southern Argentina. In the southern hemisphere winters, they move north in search of food and cooler water, then settle in Brazil’s neighboring country of Uruguay. “It is normal for a certain percentage to die, but not such numbers,” Leizagoyen said. According to her, a similar death of penguins was found in Brazil last year. The reasons are still unknown there.

According to environmentalists, penguins are increasingly suffering from overfishing of the seas. Richard Tesore of the organization SOS Rescate Fauna Marina also pointed to a storm in the Atlantic Ocean in mid-July that may have killed many vulnerable animals. In addition to penguins, according to Tesore, dead seabirds, sea turtles and sea lions have also washed up on the beaches of Maldonado in recent days.

The head of the environmental organization Ambiente de Rocha, Rodrigo García, called for the establishment of marine protected areas. “The penguin shows us the tip of the iceberg of a predicament the entire Southwest Atlantic is experiencing due to illegal, unrecorded, unregulated fishing,” he said. (cst/sda/afp)