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Warming decimates Antarctica's emperor penguin chicks

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Helpless emperor penguin chicks perished at multiple breeding grounds in West Antarctica late last year, drowning or freezing to death when sea ice eroded by global warming gave way under their tiny feet, scientists said Thursday.
Helpless emperor penguin chicks perished at multiple breeding grounds in West Antarctica late last year, drowning or freezing to death when sea ice eroded by global warming gave way under their tiny feet, scientists said Thursday.

Of five sites monitored in the Bellingshausen Sea region, all but one experienced a 100 percent loss of chicks, they reported in Communications Earth & Environment, a Nature journal.
They called it a „catastrophic breeding failure“.
„This is the first major breeding failure of emperor penguins across several colonies due to sea ice loss, and is probably a sign of things to come,“ lead author Peter Fretwell, a researcher at the British Antarctic Survey, told AFP.
„We have been predicting it for some time, but actually seeing it happening is grim.“
Last year’s southern hemisphere spring—from mid-September to mid-December—saw record-low sea ice in the Southern Ocean, especially along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, a prime breeding ground for the world’s largest penguin species.
The precocious break-up of ice that forms over open water adjacent to land proved fatal for thousands of hatchlings not yet mature enough to cope with frigid ocean waters.
A baby emperor penguin emerges from an egg kept warm in winter by a male, while the female in a breeding pair embarks on a two-month fishing expedition.

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