There Is More Life Around the Antarctic

Some places on Earth have more life than humans

Jun 25, 2025

Penguins!

Such amazing animals. Birds, living in the water, breeding on the ice. It is hard to believe, when you first hear about them, that they really exist and really live that way.

But they do.

During my life, I have heard the question, “why do penguins live only in the South?” – because, we have ice also in the North, so it would be logical to expect a similar kind of life up here.

There is a good answer to this, but I will wait a bit before revealing it.

Because, first I will repeat the tale about the waters around the Antarctic being so full of life, that “other animals arrive from near and far”, as David Attenborough just told in an old TV program, I found on one of the cable channels.

We are so fascinated by the fact (or factoid, as it appears), that these cold waters can be the basis of a tremendous amount of life, more than anywhere else, that we are prone to start looking for explanations – how the cold water, all the ice, etc., can support life better than the warmer climate at most other places.

Again, here as well, that same good explanation exists.

And the answer to both mysteries is “Human Beings” – nothing less.

We did have penguins in the North, until we killed them all. In fact, the penguins in the South are named after those in the North, because sailors found that they looked similar. While not being exactly the same birds, not genetically closely related, the Northern ones lived a similar life as those in the South.

Perhaps they didn’t need to lay eggs on the ice, because there are more rocks on more islands and other land areas in the North, but they lived in the water, stepping around on land only when it was breeding time.

They caught fishes in the sea, and they looked like penguins – because there were. The originals. Until we killed them all. Literally – there was a competition once, to catch and kill the very last of them. It is now stuffed and exhibited in the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. By coincidence, I assume, as it was on Iceland this last, extincting kill was made, then part of Denmark.

Can you imagine that you know this animal is the last of its species, once extremely common, now almost extinct, and you load your gun to shoot this last shot ever against any member of that species, just because that will somehow, in some perverted way, make you famous?

The waters in the North were full of nutrition, that could support many animals living there, including the penguins.

And the waters around the Southern penguins definitely are rich on nutrition, but mostly as a result of – “Human Beings”. We don’t live there, so we do not catch everything eatable, and we do not pollute the waters as much there as we do where we live.

You can find microplastic everywhere, even on Antarctica, and a Coca-Cola bottle (or a thousand) will also wash up on an Antarctic beach, just like on every other beach on Earth.

But we do not pour out billions of tons of wastewater, and we do not traffic the waters of the South 24 hours, 365 days, with massively polluting ships, anywhere near those southern beaches.

The water there is the same as everywhere on Earth, but it takes longer for the trash and the dirt to get there, so some of the crap will sink down to the bottom of the oceans, or it will be eaten by the life that lives on the way between here and there – between you and me, and the Antarctic.

So, the real reason for all the life down there, that we can watch on TV and be fascinated about, is that we have not destroyed it yet.

In the time before we populated the seas, and all the land areas near them, and before we built factories along the rivers to destroy all life in those, there was plenty of life in the North as well.

Before plastic…!

Before oil…!

Before industrialization…!

Before colonialization…!

The most significant reason for the South seas and the Southern lands to be so rich and amazing, so full of life, is that we haven’t destroyed them – yet!