Decline in Blue-Footed Booby Population

 The blue-footed booby, the majestic animal featured on the cover of our Biology textbooks, has recently been declining in population for reasons scientist aren't completely sure about just yet. In recent years, scientists have noticed a quite peculiar and substantial lack in fledgling birds. This essentially means that the birds are having a hard time reproducing. The total population has dropped by more than two-thirds since the 1960's. Scientists tentatively think that there may be a link between this population drop and the population drop of sardines in the area. Blue-footed boobies used to consume the highly nutritious fish as nearly their entire diet, but now sardines only make up about half of what they eat. The cause for the drop in population of sardines is also unknown, but some basic conjectures include overfishing and climate change. The blue-footed booby is definitely not the only animal that eats sardines, so other disruptions in the food web might show up in the near future. Back to the booby, this problem of not being able to produce enough offspring is very concerning. It needs to be fixed before the current population gets too old to reproduce so the species can thrive again.
Read the full article here.

NOS Themes:
Science is based on evidence - Researchers have been keeping track of the numbers of boobies they see over the years, which proves to be evidence towards the decline in population.
Science is subject to debate and is tentative - The article mentions that the scientists aren't conclusively sure their reasoning for the drop in population is correct.