“Emperor penguins have no external threats except climate change and sea ice,” said the study’s lead author,Peter Fretwell,a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey.
“They have never been hunted,hardly any contact with humanity. It is purely climate change. You can’t put the ice back. This is a global problem. If we don’t do something we are driving them to the brink of extinction.”
The report,published inCommunications Earth and Environment on Friday,examined satellite images in the Bellingshausen Sea in Antarctica between 2018 and 2022 and found that declining sea ice due to climate change resulted in breeding failure last year.
Emperor penguin colonies rely on sea ice between April and January to breed,but any change to their habitat impacts whether chicks develop waterproof feathers,and ultimately survive.
Fretwell said this was the first regional breeding failure of emperor penguins in the past 13 years. He and his team surveyed colonies at Rothschild Island,Verdi Inlet,Smyley Island,Bryan Coast,and Pfrogner Point,where penguin populations ranged from 630 to 3,500.
He said that more broadly,about 30 per cent of emperor penguin colonies across the Antarctic coastline had been impacted by the low sea ice. He added chick births this year could be even worse than in previous years given the record low sea ice driven by record warm ocean temperatures.