The world’s second largest emperor penguin colony has almost disappeared, according to a new report, raising fears about the effects of climate change on the species.
Emperor penguins need stable sea ice on which to breed and this icy platform must last from April, when the birds arrive, until December, when their chicks fledge.
The storms recurred in 2017 and again in 2018 and led to the death of almost all the chicks at the site each season, according to the report, which was published on Thursday.
The BAS study reports that for the last 60 years, the sea ice conditions in the Halley Bay site had been stable and reliable. Until recently, the colony’s breeding pairs numbered each year between 14,000 and 25,000, around 5-9% of the global emperor penguin population.
« It is impossible to say whether the changes in sea-ice conditions at Halley Bay are specifically related to climate change, but such a complete failure to breed successfully is unprecedented at this site, » penguin expert and co-author Phil Trathan said in a BAS statement.
« Even taking into account levels of ecological uncertainty, published models suggest that emperor penguins numbers are set to fall dramatically, losing 50-70% of their numbers before the end of this century as sea-ice conditions change as a result of climate change. »
Good news?
The BAS team, which has tracked the population of this and other colonies in the region for the last decade, used high-resolution satellite imagery to estimate the group’s numbers after the 2016 storm, which Fretwell said was associated with the worst El Niño event witnessed in the area.
