The Melting Sea Ice of Antarctica has Killed Thousands of Emperor Penguins. Here's All You Need To Know!

A new study says that across the four colonies in the Bellingshausen Sea of Antarctica, approximately 10,000 emperor penguin chicks may have passed away due to the sea ice beneath their breeding grounds melting and breaking in the last few months of the previous year. It is the very first occurrence of substantial breeding failure of the Emperor penguins at various sites in an area because of the lack of sea ice ever recorded.

What actually took place?

Prior to the start of the fledging period of emperor chicks, a period in which they get their wings and learn to swim, the sea ice vanished. As a result, the birds either drowned or died due to freezing. The research stated that these penguins could not regulate their body temperatures because of getting all drenched. What study are we talking about and who brought forward this study?

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The study

It was on August 24 when the study titled ‘Record low 2022 Antarctic sea ice led to catastrophic breeding failure of emperor penguins’, was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. Norman Ratcliffe and Peter T. Fretwell of the British Antarctic Survey (Cambridge) conducted the study. An independent researcher from Paris, Aude Boutet was also one of the researchers. 

Since the year 2016, the total region of the Antarctic sea with at least 15 percent of sea-ice cover has been incessantly shrinking with the total region of frozen water surrounding the continent declining to fresh record low levels with every passing year. This results in more than 90 percent of emperor penguin colonies at threat because they might become extinct by the end of the present century, in case the planet gets warmer at the current rate.

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What do the findings suggest?

The findings are based on the five emperor penguin colonies situated in the Belligshausen Sea area, west of the Antarctic Peninsula with the help of satellite images captured between the years 2018 and 2022.  The researchers studied the activity of birds by means of tracking their excrement, known as guano, leaving a brown trace on the sea ice. The Verdi Inlet, Bryant Coast, Smyley Island, Pfrogner Point, and Rothschild Island were the points where the colonies were examined.

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