Why are the penguins starving?

Hundreds of penguins that apparently starved to death are washing up on the beaches of Brazil, worrying scientists who are still investigating what's causing them to die.

About 500 of the black-and-white birds have been found just in the last 10 days on Peruibe, Praia Grande and Itanhaem beaches in Sao Paulo state, said Thiago do Nascimento, a biologist at the Peruibe Aquarium.

Most were Magellan penguins migrating north from Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands in search of food in warmer waters.

Many are not finding it: Autopsies done on several birds revealed their stomachs were entirely empty — indicating they likely starved to death, Nascimento said.

Scientists are investigating whether strong currents and colder-than-normal waters have hurt populations of the species that make up the penguins' diet, or whether human activity may be playing a role.

"Overfishing may have made the fish and squid scarcer," Nascimento said.

Nascimento said it's common for penguins to swim north this time of year. Inevitably, some get lost along the way or die from hunger or exhaustion, and end up on the Brazilian coast far from home.

But not in such numbers — Nascimento said about 100 to 150 live penguins show up on the beach in an average year, and only 10 or so are dead.

"What worries us this year," he said, "is the absurdly high number of penguins that have appeared dead in a short period of time."

The Japanese are known to have exploited Third World country fishing resources...they did it in Africa and South America. Those places have been cleaned out. I know (from personal experience) that they DO it in the Islands of the Bahamas by donating fishing boats to locals and building fish houses (giant reefers)in return for a percentage of the catch and that these unscrupulous JAPANESE companies were instrumental in changing fishing regulations that limited visiting sportsfishermen's catches and dropping ALL limits for local fishermen.

The Japanese fishing industry is a major threat to life in the ocean and we are already down to 10% of the resources since 1960 ...question is "How do we stop this greedy wholesale destruction in the name of corporate profit within our worlds' oceans?