The land mines have been good for the birds. In 1982, the Falkland Islands—a wind-lashed, nearly treeless archipelago 300 miles off the coast of South America—were the center of a brief war between Argentina and Great Britain. The British quickly reclaimed the territory, which had been a British colony since the early 19th century, but as the Argentine military retreated from the islands, it scattered some 20,000 land mines on the beaches behind them. Rather than clear the mines, the British left the beaches alone. In the process, they inadvertently created a nature preserve. Local penguins—the southern rockhopper, the macaroni, the jackass—are too light to trigger the mines, and they have thrived on the deserted beaches. | 
