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Emperor penguins may be on a march toward extinction

Print | Comments () Posted by Beth Daley January 29, 2009 07:09 AM

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By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

UPDATE: Commentators are right - rude posts shouldn't have been allowed. There will be better monitoring on the site in the future.

Climate change is threatening many charismatic species, but if you’ve ever seen the Academy Award winning documentary “March of the Penguins”, the latest research out of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is bound to make you pause.

Emperor penguins (photo by Samuel Blanc. www.sblanc.com)

Emperor penguins – those regal anthropomorphized Antarctic animals - may be heading for extinction.

A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that the world’s largest penguins could suffer serious population declines through at least part of their range before the end of the century. The paper, co-authored by five researchers and led by WHOI biologists Stephanie Jenouvrier and Hal Caswell, used mathematical models to predict the effect on penguins from climate change and the resulting loss of sea ice.

Baby emperor penguins

Penguins need sea ice to breed, feed and molt on. The ice also serves as a grazing ground for krill - tiny crustaceans that penguins, along with fish, whales and seals, feed on. The research indicates if climate change continues to melt sea ice at the rates published in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, the median population size of a large emperor penguin colony such as one in Terre Adelie, Antarctica, will likely shrink from its present size of 3,000 to only 400 breeding pairs by the end of the century. There are about 40 emperor penguin colonies that exist in the world.

Emperor penguins weigh around 66 pounds and can stand about 3.8 feet tall. They can dive to a depth of 1,800 feet and hold their breath for up to 22 minutes – allowing them to get food other birds can’t get.

The researchers say the probability of a population decline of 95 percent or more is at least 40 percent and perhaps as much as 80 percent. If that many penguins are lost, extinction could occur.

Over the last 50 years, climate change in Antarctica has been most pronounced in the Antarctic Peninsula, where Terre Adelie is located. In the future, the Ross Sea—where sea ice actually has increased in recent years—may be the last sanctuary for penguins, the paper notes.

Last month, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decided not to list the emperor penguin under the endangered species act.