Antarctic 'Icon' Penguins Are Disappearing [Climate Crisis Now]
It has been revealed that the population of penguins living in Antarctica has decreased by up to 50% in some areas. This is because their foraging activities are limited due to the harsh Antarctic environment and climate crisis, which has reduced sea ice.
April 25th is 'World Penguin Day'. Emperor penguins begin to migrate north before the Antarctic winter begins, before the sea freezes. This commemoration was established in consideration of the fact that they are frequently observed near the McMurdo Antarctic Station in the United States.
It was designated to protect penguins, which are gradually disappearing due to climate crisis and habitat destruction, and to raise awareness of their importance.
Emperor penguins, which represent Antarctica, are currently classified as 'Near Threatened' on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List. The main threats are climate change and fishing activities. Due to climate change, sea ice is shrinking and key habitats are disappearing, which is seriously affecting the reproduction and survival of emperor penguins.
A chick hurdling on the Dawson-Lambton Glacier in Antarctica. [Photo=Fritz Pölking/WWF]
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is collaborating with Oxford University's citizen science initiative 'Penguin Watch' and citizen science platform 'The Zooniverse' to collect penguin population and behavior data. It is continuously monitoring.
Various conservation activities such as designating marine protected areas (MPAs) and sustainable fisheries management are continuing to protect penguin habitats and food resources.
Emperor penguins are the largest species of penguins, reaching about 115 cm in height. Once they pair up, they stay together for life and are responsible for reproduction and childrearing together. After laying eggs, the female goes out to sea and travels up to 50 km to hunt fish, squid, and krill, and then returns to feed her chicks.
Meanwhile, the male keeps the egg warm by holding it on his feet and wrapping it in a feather-covered skin called a "brood pouch." During these two months, the male does not eat and guards the egg in the freezing temperatures of tens of degrees below zero.
After the hatching, the female continues to raise the chick by regurgitating the food stored in her stomach. The male then heads out to the sea again in search of food. In December, when summer arrives, the sea ice parted to reveal the sea, and the young penguins prepare to head out to sea.
A baby emperor penguin receiving food from its mother's mouth in Antarctica. [Photo = Shutterstock/svetoolya/WWF]
As sea ice melts due to climate change, the emperor penguin's breeding grounds and foraging grounds are gradually shrinking. In some areas, the emperor penguin population is rapidly declining, which is also leading to breeding failures.
In fact, when I covered Antarctica in 2016, green feces were scattered all over Cape Washington, the emperor penguin's habitat. When emperor penguins eat fry, their feces turn green. When they eat their main food, krill, they turn pink. It showed that krill feeding was insufficient due to the shrinking sea ice.
Emperor penguins, the icon of Antarctica. [Photo=Reporter Jeong Jong-oh]
Emperor penguins, which live in the harsh environment of Antarctica, are the world's best diving birds, diving an average of 200m and up to 565m underwater and staying there for over 20 minutes.
They have adapted to the extreme nature of Antarctica for thousands of years, demonstrating various adaptive mechanisms such as hunting skills and group survival strategies. As the sea ice shrinks, their main food, krill and squid, are decreasing, threatening their very survival.
Emperor penguins play a key role in the middle stage of the food chain in the Antarctic ecosystem. In some areas, their population has decreased by up to 50%.
Emperor penguins maintain their body temperature by forming groups in a unique way called 'huddling'. In the -50 degree cold, thousands of penguins maintain their body temperature by pressing their bodies close together and take turns moving inside the group to warm their bodies.
This method of maintaining body temperature by closely huddling is an important means of survival in extreme environments.
As the population decreases due to the effects of climate change, it is becoming increasingly difficult for sufficient numbers of penguins to gather and huddle. This means that the survival strategy of protecting their bodies from the cold may no longer work, WWF explained.
Meanwhile, the Polar Research Institute (Director Shin Hyung-cheol) confirmed the hunting strategy of Adélie penguins that appears when it becomes difficult to obtain food during the breeding season due to environmental changes in Antarctica. They were using the so-called 'dual foraging strategy'.
When food was relatively abundant and favorable for hunting, Adélie penguins foraged for food in almost the same place, but when the environment became unfavorable, they divided their hunting places. They obtained food from nearby places to give to their chicks, who need frequent nutrition, and went far away to eat food themselves.
Adélie penguins in the Antarctic. [Photo = Polar Research Institute]
Dr. Kim Jeong-hoon's research team attached location tracking and dive recorders to 47 Adélie penguins in Cape Hallett, Ross Sea, Antarctica, where about 40,000 pairs of Adélie penguins live, and tracked their migration routes and foraging during two summer seasons of 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. It was found that
Adélie penguins adopted a 'bimodal foraging strategy' to raise their chicks and maintain their own nutritional status when faced with an environment where it was difficult to secure food.
Shin Hyeong-cheol, director of the Polar Research Institute, said, "Penguins occupy an important position in the food chain of the Antarctic ecosystem, so if climate change threatens the survival of Antarctic penguins, the entire ecosystem could be shaken. We will continue to monitor their ecology and adaptation and evaluate the impact."
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