Record low sea ice in late 2023 led to breeding failures in one-fifth of Antarctica\u2019s emperor penguin colonies, scientists with the British Antarctic Survey said on Thursday.
\nEmperors \u2013 the world\u2019s largest penguin species and one of only two endemic to Antarctica \u2014 depend on sea ice firmly attached to the shore to lay their eggs and raise their chicks. If ice breaks up too early, the chicks will be forced to enter the sea before their waterproof feathers have fully come in.
\n\u201cThey\u2019ll either freeze to death or they\u2019ll drown,\u201d said Peter Fretwell, a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey who studies wildlife using satellites.
\nThat happened in 14 of Antarctica\u2019s 66 emperor penguin colonies last year as the extent of Antarctic\u2019s sea ice shrank to a record low, driven in part by climate change-fuelled heating. Tens of thousands of chicks are likely to have died.
\nThe extent of spring and summer sea-ice around Antarctica has fallen significantly over the past seven years, with 2022 and 2023 registering record summer lows.
\nAlthough 2023 saw a lower sea ice extent than the year before in nearly all months of the breeding season, emperor penguin colonies experienced fewer breeding failures than in 2022, which saw breeding failures at a third of all colonies, Fretwell said.
\nThat was partly because there were fewer sea ice break-up events in 2023, while some birds also seemed to adapt to the changed conditions.
\n\u201cMaybe half a dozen or so of the colonies that were affected in 2022 took action and moved their breeding locations,\u201d said Fretwell, who surveyed the birds\u2019 movements and breeding failures via the Copernicus Programme\u2019s Sentinel-2 satellite.
\nSome moved south to better ice, while other colonies went up on to more stable ice shelves or large icebergs to try to avoid the worst conditions.
\nThis, Fretwell said, was reassuring \u201cbecause it just shows these birds will adapt to the changing conditions to a certain extent\u201d.
\nStill, scientists predict that 99% of emperor penguins will be lost by the end of this century if sea ice continues to decline due to climate change fuelled by the burning of fossil fuels.
\n(Reuters)Emperor penguins. sea ice, emperor penguins, breeding failures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Record low sea ice in late 2023 led to breeding failures in one-fifth of Antarctica\u2019s emperor penguin colonies, with tens of thousands of chicks likely dying as a result. The penguins depend on sea ice attached to the shore to raise their young, and if the ice breaks up too early, the chicks may freeze or drown. Some colonies adapted by moving their breeding locations to better ice, showing that the birds can adjust to changing conditions to some extent. However, scientists predict that 99% of emperor penguins could be lost by the end of the century if sea ice continues to decline due to climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5095,3910,7874,461,3348,693,694,5732,2692,2190,7873,203,3343,706,387,4095,3260,7872,1535,4347,1229,6305,18],"class_list":["post-9615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-antarctica","tag-birds","tag-breeding-failures","tag-british","tag-change","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-crisis","tag-conditions","tag-death","tag-decline","tag-emperor-penguins","tag-environment","tag-events","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-lost","tag-penguins","tag-sea","tag-sea-ice","tag-spring","tag-summer","tag-survey","tag-who","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n