The mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks as sea ice is melted by the local weather crisis has led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to declare the species formally in peril of extinction.
Emperor penguins depend on “fast” ice – sea ice that’s firmly hooked up to the coast – for 9 months of the yr. It is the place their fluffy chicks are hatched and develop till they’ve their waterproof feathers. Adults moult yearly and likewise want a secure haven whereas their swimming feathers regrow.
However, world heating has led to file lows in Antarctic sea ice since 2016. When sea ice breaks up early, whole colonies can fall into the ocean, leaving the chicks to drown. Even if some penguins escape the water, they’re soaked and can freeze to dying.
Four of the 5 recognized emperor penguin breeding websites within the Bellingshausen Sea collapsed in 2022, with the loss of hundreds of chicks. Another colony in the Weddell Sea collapsed in 2016. Researchers referred to as the catastrophes “grim” and “extraordinarily distressing”.
The IUCN evaluation tasks that the emperor penguin inhabitants will halve by the 2080s owing to sea ice loss. The present emperor penguin inhabitants is estimated at 595,000 adults, having already fallen by 10% between 2009 and 2018.
Emperors are the biggest penguin species and jumped two classes, from “near threatened” to “endangered” within the new IUCN evaluation.
The evaluation additionally discovered the local weather crisis had pushed a halving of the Antarctic fur seal inhabitants since 2000, owing to a discount within the krill that the animals depend on for meals. The seal has jumped three classes from least concern to endangered within the newest crimson checklist of threatened species.
“The emperor penguin’s move to endangered is a stark warning: climate change is accelerating the extinction crisis before our eyes,” stated Martin Harper, the chief govt of BirdLife International, which coordinated the IUCN evaluation. “Governments must act now to urgently decarbonise our economies.”
The marine ecologist Dr Philip Trathan, who labored on the emperor penguin crimson checklist evaluation, stated: “Human-induced climate change poses the most significant threat. Early sea ice breakup is already affecting colonies around the Antarctic, and further changes in sea ice will continue to affect their breeding, feeding and moulting habitat. Emperor penguins are a sentinel species that tell us about our changing world and how well we are controlling greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change.”
Dr Peter Fretwell, a scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, was half of the group that reported the colony collapses within the Bellingshausen Sea in 2022. “It’s a grim story,” he advised the Guardian then. “I was shocked. It’s very hard to think of these cute fluffy chicks dying in large numbers.”
Dr Barbara Wienecke, of the Australian Antarctic Division, stated of the identical colony collapses: “It’s horrendous and I find it extraordinarily distressing to think of this happening.”
Rod Downie, chief advisor, polar and oceans at WWF-UK, stated: “With the shocking decline in Antarctic sea ice we are currently witnessing, these icons on ice may well be heading down the slippery slope towards extinction by the end of this century – unless we act now. The fate of these magnificent birds is in our hands.”
Cutting the carbon dioxide pumped into the environment by burning fossil fuels to zero is the one solution to halt world heating. WWF can be calling for emperor penguins to be listed as a “specially protected species” at the subsequent Antarctic treaty meeting in May in Japan, which might assist cut back different pressures on their habitat equivalent to tourism and transport.
The Antarctic fur seal inhabitants has dropped by greater than half since 1999 to 944,000 mature seals in 2025, in line with IUCN. The decline is the consequence of rising ocean temperatures pushing krill to greater depths in search of colder water, lowering the supply of meals for seals. Krill shortages at South Georgia island have slashed the survival of pups of their first yr.
The southern elephant seal can be now at risk of extinction, the IUCN stated, having been hit by chicken flu outbreaks since 2020. The illness has affected 4 of the 5 main subpopulations, killing greater than 90% of new child pups in some colonies. The species is now within the IUCN’s susceptible class.
