Mass drowning of chicks puts emperor penguins at risk of extinction
The Guardian • • general
Key Points:
- The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has declared emperor penguins endangered due to mass chick drownings caused by the loss of Antarctic sea ice from climate change.
- Emperor penguins depend on stable sea ice for breeding and moulting, but early ice breakup since 2016 has led to colony collapses, notably in the Bellingshausen Sea in 2022, resulting in thousands of chick deaths.
- The emperor penguin population, currently about 595,000 adults, is projected to halve by the 2080s due to ongoing sea ice decline, with a 10% decrease already recorded between 2009 and 2018.
- The IUCN assessment also highlights a halving of the Antarctic fur seal population since 2000 due to krill shortages caused by warming oceans, and the southern elephant seal is now vulnerable following deadly bird flu outbreaks.
- Conservationists urge urgent global action to reduce carbon emissions and propose listing emperor penguins as a specially protected species to mitigate additional threats from tourism and shipping.
