Entire colonies of baby penguins killed by ice loss, researchers say

The lack of ice in a single area of Antarctica final 12 months probably resulted in 1000’s of emperor penguin chicks dying, researchers reported as we speak.

Emperor penguins hatch their eggs and lift their chicks on the ice that types across the continent every Antarctic winter and melts in the summertime months.

Researchers used satellite tv for pc imagery to take a look at breeding colonies in a area close to Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea. The pictures confirmed no ice was left there in December throughout the Southern Hemisphere’s summer time, as had occurred in 2021.

Researchers stated it’s probably that no chicks survived in 4 of the 5 breeding colonies they examined. Penguin chicks do not develop their grownup waterproof feathers till near the time they often fledge, in late December or January, scientists say.

“If the sea ice breaks up under them, the young chicks will drown or freeze to death,” stated Peter Fretwell, a researcher on the British Antarctic Survey and co-author of the research printed Thursday within the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Overall, the ice round Antarctica reached close to document low ranges final 12 months. The researchers say that local weather change will make such losses extra frequent sooner or later.

Antarctic sea ice loss could be killing off penguins. — The change in sea ice ranges between October and December final 12 months. (British Antarctic Survey)

Fretwell’s workforce has additionally accomplished a preliminary evaluation of identified nesting websites — seen in satellite tv for pc photographs due to coloured guano, or faecal stains, left on white ice — throughout Antarctica, the one continent the place the emperor penguin lives. There are about 300,000 breeding pairs left of the world’s largest penguins.

Of 62 identified penguin colonies, round 30 per cent have been harmed by low sea-ice ranges final 12 months — and 13 probably failed fully, Fretwell stated.

“That this could happen doesn’t shock me, but I’m shocked that it has happened already. I thought it would be further down the line,” stated Daniel Zitterbart, a researcher who research Antarctica for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, however was not concerned within the new paper.