"Penguins are among those species that show us that we are making fundamental changes to our world," she said. "The fate of all species is to go extinct, but there are some species that go extinct before their time and we are facing that possibility with some penguins."

As the world's population continues to explode and more and more people live in coastal areas, the negative effects are growing for both marine and shore-based habitats used by a variety of species. There is an urgent need to begin monitoring those negative impacts, Boersma said.

"I don't think we can wait. In 1960 we had 3 billion people in the world. Now it's 6.7 billion and it's expected to be 8 billion by 2025," she said. "We've waited a very long time. It's clear that humans have changed the face of the Earth and we have changed the face of the oceans, but we just can't see it. We've already waited too long.

6,7 billion people trying to achieve an industrial lifestyle where you consume and throw away plastic entertainment every week, is a complete disaster. Dee Boersma is right when she says that we need the penguins in real life and not just on TV. Time to change direction of where we're heading, not just in the West, but in the East as well as in continents like Australia and Africa. We don't have time to sit around and debate whether we should execute carbon farting cows or how many light bulbs each democratic citizen ought to recycle. We need to be fewer people and we can't go on living the lifestyle we're living at the moment. Until we address these two fundamental points, the penguins across the world will continue to suffer, and the oceans with them.