The emperor penguin, which roams the frozen tundra and cold seas of Antarctica, is at serious risk of extinction within the next 30 to 40 years due to climate change, an expert from the Argentine Antarctic Institute (IAA) has warned. .
The emperor, the world’s largest penguin and one of only two penguin species endemic to Antarctica, gives birth during the winter and needs solid sea ice from April to December to brood. If the sea freezes later or melts prematurely, the emperor family cannot complete its reproductive cycle, which is the longest among penguins.
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After the birth of a chick, one of the parents continues to carry it between its paws to warm it until it develops its definitive plumage. ” If the water reaches newborn penguins, which are not ready to swim and do not have waterproof plumage, they freeze to death and drown.“said biologist Marcela Libertelli, who studied 15,000 penguins in two colonies in Antarctica at the IAA.
This is what happened to the colony of Halley Bay in the Weddell Sea, the second largest colony of emperor penguins, where for three years all the chicks died. ” Projections suggest that colonies located between latitudes 60 and 70 degrees will disappear in the coming decades“, lamented the biologist, noting that the disappearance of the emperor penguin could have a dramatic impact throughout Antarctica, an extreme environment where food chains have ” fewer members and links« .
In early April, the World Meteorological Organization warned of “increasingly extreme temperatures, coupled with unusual rainfall and melting ice in Antarctica that has been getting poorer since at least 1999.
With MAP