Thousands of Penguin Chicks Die in Antarctic Due to Low Ice Levels
- Christopher Walton
The chicks “will go into the water and either drown or freeze to death even if they do get back out,” Peter Fretwell, the study’s lead author said.
Unlike other animal populations throughout the world, emperor penguins haven’t been subject to large-scale hunting or overfishing. This means that researchers have noticed that climate change is going to be a major driver of population loss for the species.
This is alarming because 2022 wasn’t the only year with dangerously low sea ice that threatened several colonies of emperor penguins. Since 2016, researchers have recorded the four years with the lowest sea ice extent in the more than 40 years of satellite records.
The 2021 to 2022 and the 2022 to 2023 seasons had the lowest sea ice levels on record.
“Recent efforts to predict emperor penguin population trends from forecasts of sea ice loss have painted a bleak picture, showing that if present rates of warming persist over 90% of emperor colonies will be quasi-extinct by the end of this century,” the study authors wrote.
Officials are noticing and acting on how climate change will affect these Antarctic birds. In October 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted emperor penguins federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.
The especially low sea ice is a downward trend observed since a record high in 2014, according to NASA. What has followed has been the record lows mentioned in the study.
The loss of sea ice will also create tremendous losses for other Antarctic species and for the planet. Antarctica’s ice reflects sunlight away from the planet, which helps regulate global temperatures.
Fretwell told that there could still be time to save Antarctic environments in hopes of protecting them for vulnerable animals.
“It’s only by changing our behaviour and the amounts of fossil fuels we use will we reverse the trajectory for these emperor penguins, and many other species,” he remarked.
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