Emperor penguins facing extinction
The emperor penguin will vanish from Antarctica in the next century unless climate change is halted, according to new research.
The majestic bird – that featured in the hit documentary March of the Penguins – could join the Dodo, the Tasmanian Tiger and more recently the Western Black Rhino on the extinct list if the sea ice melts around the frozen continent.
Emperor penguins can live for 20 years and grow to over a metre in height. They famously huddle together to endure the long, dark Antarctic winter when temperatures can plummet to -40 degrees Celsius.
They build their colonies on ice with extremely specific conditions, which must be locked in to the shoreline but close enough to the sea to give the birds access to food for themselves and their young.
They use the sea ice as a base for breeding and when they shed their waterproof feathers and cannot swim, meaning they will come under threat as global temperatures rise.
The research used data to predict what will happen to the penguins if nations fail to meet the climate targets of the Paris Agreement, which was signed in 2016 to deal with greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientist Dr Michelle LaRue, a lecturer of Antarctic marine science at
University of Canterbury who coauthored the paper, said there are currently 250,000 breeding pairs but the numbers will dramatically drop by the year 2100, unless climate targets are met. ‘‘Basically, if we don’t hit the Paris Accord emissions goals, emperor penguins are in deep trouble,’’ she said.
The research was part of an international collaboration between scientists and is published in the journal Global Change Biology.
And Stephanie Jenouvrier, a seabird ecologist and lead author on the paper, said the model used provided a very detailed account of how sea ice affects ‘‘the life cycle of emperor penguins, their reproduction and mortality’’.
‘‘If global climate keeps warming at the current rate, we expect emperor penguins in Antarctica to experience an 86 per cent decline by the year 2100,’’ she said.
‘‘At that point, it is very unlikely for them to bounce back.’’
The study found that if global temperatures rise by 1.5C then 5 per cent of sea ice would be lost by 2100, causing a 19 per cent drop in the number of penguin colonies.
But where no action is taken to reduce climate change, there would be a temperature increase of 5 to 6C, causing an almost complete loss of the colonies.
‘‘Under that scenario, the penguins will effectively be marching towards extinction,’’ Jenouvrier said.