When people think of penguins, they tend to think of snow and ice, but most of the world's penguins actually live in more temperate climes. In his talk, writer and biologist Eric Wagner will talk about some of the research that has come out of Punta Tombo, Argentina, site of one of the largest penguin colonies in the world. For more than forty years, biologists from the University of Washington have gone to Punta Tombo to study the hundreds of thousands of Magellanic penguins that breed there. In looking closely at their lives, we learn not only the challenges they face, but also the ways that humans can help ensure that penguins will always have a future. 

Eric Wagner is a writer and biologist at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. He is the author of three books, including Penguins in the Desert. He received his PhD from the University of Washington for his work on Magellanic penguins in Argentina. In addition to penguins, he studies rhinoceros auklets off the Washington coast. He lives in Seattle with his family.