Thousands of Adélie penguin chicks starved to death in Antarctica earlier this year, leading conservationists and scientists to call for urgent action.
Penguin parents were forced to travel farther in search of food as a result of unusually extensive sea ice. The chicks died while waiting for them to return.
Scientists found only two remaining chicks in the colony in Terre Adélie, Antarctica.
“Adélie penguins are one of the hardiest and most amazing animals on our planet. This devastating event contrasts with the image that many people might have of penguins. It’s more like ‘Tarantino does Happy Feet’, with dead penguin chicks strewn across a beach in Adélie Land,” said Rod Downie, Head of Polar Programmes at World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Penguin parents were forced to travel farther in search of food as a result of unusually extensive sea ice. The chicks died while waiting for them to return.
Scientists found only two remaining chicks in the colony in Terre Adélie, Antarctica.
“Adélie penguins are one of the hardiest and most amazing animals on our planet. This devastating event contrasts with the image that many people might have of penguins. It’s more like ‘Tarantino does Happy Feet’, with dead penguin chicks strewn across a beach in Adélie Land,” said Rod Downie, Head of Polar Programmes at World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Four years ago, the same colony, which then numbered 20,196 pairs, failed to produce a single chick. According to the WWF, which is supporting research in the area, that loss was attributed to heavy sea ice, combined with unusually warm weather and rain, which was followed by a rapid drop in temperature that led to the chicks becoming saturated and freezing to death.
The news of the latest tragic loss broke just ahead of an annual meeting of the 25-member Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) being held in Australia next week, where proposals for new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the waters off of East Antarctica will be considered.
It’s hoped that protecting habitat there, and making the area off-limits to potential krill fisheries and other harmful or disruptive activities, will help protect them.
‘The risk of opening up this area to exploratory krill fisheries, which would compete with the Adélie penguins for food as they recover from two catastrophic breeding failures in four years, is unthinkable. So CCAMLR needs to act now by adopting a new Marine Protected Area for the waters off East Antarctica, to protect the home of the penguins,” added Downie.
Last year, CCAMLR created the the world’s largest marine sanctuary on earth in the Ross Sea, but has yet to act on proposals to protect the waters off of East Antarctica.
“The region is impacted by environmental changes that are linked to the breakup of the Mertz glacier since 2010. An MPA will not remedy these changes but it could prevent further impacts that direct anthropogenic pressures, such as tourism and proposed fisheries, could bring,” said Yan Ropert-Coudert, senior penguin scientist at the French National Center for Scientific Research. Ropert-Coudert leads the Adélie penguin program at Dumont D’Urville research station, adjacent to the colony.
Hopefully this tragic loss will help push the effort to create an MPA that will help protect Adélie penguins and other vulnerable species.
Take action!
Urge the United States government to support a new protected marine area for Adélie penguins in the Antarctic. Sign the share the Care2 petition.Photo credit: Thinkstock
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