Penguin tragedy
Monday 28th August 2023Penguin tragedy
Emperor penguins in the Antarctic are suffering a “catastrophic” breeding failure as the region’s sea ice vanishes, pointing to a grim future for a species highly susceptible to the impacts of climate, a new study has found.
Researchers used satellite imagery to find that chicks in four out of five emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) colonies in the Bellingshausen Sea, an area along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula, didn’t survive to fledge in the Southern Hemisphere spring of 2022. This lack of fledgling success is directly attributed to sea ice loss, which is a consequence of human-induced climate change, according to the study published in Communications Earth & Environment.
