The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation (EOWBF) and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) will be embarking on an exciting new initiative beginning in the summer of 2013. Beginning with Ghost Rookeries: Climate Change and the Adelie Penguin (4 minutes, 2013), short videos produced by the EOWBF will be shown at select AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums located in the United States. With the vast reach of AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums, Ghost Rookeries and future videos will be seen by millions of visitors.
Ghost Rookeries, narrated by actor, conservationist, and member of the EOWBF Board of Advisors Harrison Ford, conveys the story of the Adelie Penguin, whose habitat—and thus the biodiversity of all of Antarctica—is being threatened by real-time environmental changes.
“The consequences of a loss of biodiversity could encompass everything from altering key Antarctic marine food chains to the loss of species that may hold cures to cancer,” writes Dr. James McClintock, whose recent book, Lost Antarctica: Adventures in a Disappearing Land (Palgrave/MacMilllan, 2012), forms the basis of Ghost Rookeries.
Dr. Paula Ehrlich, President and CEO of the EOWBF, calls Ghost Rookeries and the partnership with AZA “. . . a wonderful way to engage audiences about the importance of preserving our biological heritage through story. The Adelie Penguin is an iconic story, a symbol, of the real-time effect of climate change on biodiversity.”
Ghost Rookeries was produced by the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the Tennessee Aquarium.
