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4" Penguins in Safety Sweaters Need Help
chrisd writes "We all give lip service to how much we like penguins and such, well a bunch of the "little" penguins (4 inch tall little guys) have been spooged by an oil tanker in southern australia. They need cash to help them take care of the little fellas. They put them in little sweaters and such to keep them from preening the oil off thier wings into thier stomaches, which causes them to die. A picture of them in thier protective gear can be found there or at a my mirror."
Now's your chance to do some good with those zillions of dollars you made from the RedHat and VA Linux IPO's. Let's make some donations.
(I say "Let's", even though I didn't get in on the IPO. )
What's your damage, Heather?
It took a bit of reading to find anywhere to send money to, but I finally found this:
Donations can be sent to: Phillip Island Penguin Parade, ATT: Penguin Hospital Support Fund P.O. Box 97 Cowes Phillip Island. Victoria. 3922. AUSTRALIA.
The didn't have anyway that I found, in the amount of time I had, to give money online or anything. Darn it those things are cute. Easy to want to help.
Like much in our world, the merchant shipping industry is a haven for jobsworths, tightwads and schemers. Rather than have tanks cleaned properly in port (at a cost) unscrupulous shipowners encourage crews to simply flush them at sea. Stand on any beach near a shipping lane, and you can guarantee there'll be tar-like deposits everywhere from this heinous practise.
... Well, almost every large merchant vessel flies under a flag of convenience. This enables the captain or owners to say ``well, sue me in Liberia''.
There's little governments can do even if they have a fair idea which ships or copmanies are to blame. Do it in international waters, and no-one can get you. And if you get caught
A friend who works as a deck oficcer commented to me once that another problem is hopeless crews. OFficers tend to be trained and conscientius(sp?),
but crews often don't speak the same language as the officers and have no training. In the British merchant navy, many crews are Philipino simply because the owners can get away with paying them shit wages.
Anyways, enough of the ranting. I just hope no more of these little penguins succumb to the oil.
Chris Wareham
Phillip Island's penguin colony is a great place to visit (I was there many years ago). The penguins all come from the sea to feed their chicks at roughly the same time in the evening. You can watch this from bleachers at the beach.
Whoever dumped the slick off Phillip Island should be fed to sharks.
Orwell, I tried my best! :)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Why don't we nominate the penguins for the "Most deserving to win $2000.00" beanie thing? That'd certainly help them out, and they'd probably put it to very good use. Even if the awards are distributed after the crisis is over, the association which is taking care of the penguins will be in the middle of a major cash crunch and I'm sure that they could use it.
disclaimer: opinions contained therein are not neccessarily those of my employer.
Well, once again it looks like we've been able, or will be able, to make a difference! From the penguins' web site:
PINP Release (Park Ranger) Fri 9:28amThis response is really fantastic - we are doing up a form page for those wanting to help out. And all the rangers here are *genuinely* moved at this overwhelming show of support. Wish we could show you the Penguin Hospital which is currently crowded by so many Little Penguins, and we will try and get some more pics online in our News Release service. And please keep the notes/emails coming in - this week has been very tiring and stressful. The Island and the Penguins (plus koalas and seals) are more than a job to everyone here. Its hard to explain, but these "wild animals" are very much a part of the life of our Island Community. I hope one day the Linux folk and others will join us for a celbration down here!
All monies raised will be going directly to improving the Little Penguin Hospital facilities in the here and now. Everything IS helping - and your words of encouragement are as meaningful to us as the donations being received. Thankyou! PS Could someone please post this thankyou somewhere ALL the Linux folk etc. can read it? Ta muchly!
and...
Amazing to see the replies coming in from the Linux community - what can we say? Thanks all!
Donations are very much appreciated as th enumber of affected penguins grows over 200 now, and sadly the number of dead is also rising :(
You can send a donation via cheque, postal or money order (probably travellers cheque as well) to:
Phillip Island Penguin Parade
att: Penguin Hospital Support Fund
P.O. Box 97
Cowes
Phillip Island. Victoria. 3922. AUSTRALIA.
Email to: penguins@penguins.org.au (we WILL reply ASAP to all enquiries)
On the programming side, we have just installed three (3) live online internet "kiosks" in our Visitor Centre. These are due to be up and running this week, delayed a little by the current crisis. Currently the three PC's are networked to a UNIX server, however we have been seriously investigating how to get a Linux box in place.I'm still on a learning curve with Linux, and must confess that it was Linux's use of the Little Penguin that first attracted me to the free/community OS. Programming enquiries to: penguins@ozgurus.com
Thanks and have a good one all!
From the site in the article:
http://www.penguins.org.au/chat/index.html
there is now a link near the top to a form for online donations by credit card. If you don't want to look at the news and chat page on the penguin site, you can go direct to
https://www.penguins.org.au/medi a/helpinghand.html
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.