Only two Adélie penguin chicks on Terre Adélie survived to adulthood this year, despite having over 18,000 breeding pairs!steemCreated with Sketch.

in #science7 years ago

The Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) is a common penguin species all over the Antarctic coastline, with almost 4 million birds spread out over the entire continent. They are not considered to be endangered, or even anything close to that, but recent news has given rise to concern about the well-being of this penguin species.


An Adélie penguin. Image by Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0.

A scientists employed by the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) studied a population of Adélie penguins on Terre Adélie (officially known as Petrels Island), a region with over 18,000 breeding penguin pairs. Their observations of the colony lead to the conclusion that only two chicks survived in the entire population! All the other breeding pairs laid eggs, but either the eggs did not hatch, or the chicks died before they grew old enough to be able to take care of themselves. According to the scientists, dead chicks and unhatched eggs were scattered all over the island!

As you have probably guessed by now, this has an external reason, because such a low survival rate is simply not natural. And you’re right. The reason why most chicks died is expected to be because the ice was so thick that the parents were unable to get into the water. This lead to them being unable to feed the chicks, and they starved to death.

This is sadly not the first time this population has had problems. In 2013 a similar thing happened, but this time not a single chick survived. It’s unsure for how long this population will be able to keep surviving if so few chicks are surviving each year.

Climate change is to blame

A lot of Antarctica is melting, and this is what is causing the problems for the penguins on Terre Adélie as well. The reason why the thick ice won’t let them get to the water is because a nearby glacier broke off, and a piece of the glacier (being the size of Luxembourg) blocked the sea for this penguin population. This has made the penguins having to walk over 100km to reach the sea, and this takes so long that the chicks starve to death.

Next week the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) will take place, and at this convention, EU and 25 other countries will meet to discuss solutions to the problems the Antarctic is facing. They obviously won’t be able to stop climate change, but they may be able to provide some solutions to penguins and other marine animals to help them cope with it a bit better.

Thanks for reading!

If you are interested in learning more, check out the press release by WWF regarding the matter!

About the author

Hi, I’m @valth! I live in Norway with my wife, our baby, and our two dogs; one of which is seen wearing a bow tie in the profile picture!

I am very passionate about nature and biology, and have been studying ecology for a few years now. My passions are mostly within conservation biology, mycology (the studies of mushrooms), botany, animal behavior and general microbiology. I really enjoy both the theoretical aspect, as well as the more practical aspect of biology, and I spend about as much time in front of biology textbooks as I do spend on finding and identifying plant, mushroom and animal species in the forests.

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Thank you for that information, it seems we can see some other effect climate change can have for our entire eco system. Penguins somehow belong to my favor kind of animals and it makes me sad to read that news.
Too bad mankind is not able to agree about any real measures to protect our earth and to counter climate change. People always argue these days against any kind of regulations but in this kind of free market thinking our own habitat, this wonderful planet will be the biggest loser.
Have just joined this platform a week ago but it's very encouraging to find those kind of informative post here.
Thank you again, and please keep up all your great work!!

Thank you for the kind words! And welcome to Steemit :)

I agree with a lot of what you say. The leader of most countries make agreements like the Paris Agreement, but none seem intent on actually doing what they promised. At least some countries see some "green" politicians enter the government, so we can hope this trend changes in the future!

Q: Whats a penguins favorite relative?
A: Aunt Arctica!

Haha, that joke actually made me laugh! :D

Yes, not a whole lot we can do about climate change for now, look at California 🔥 whatever can be done to preserve and protect our existing wildlife is the most important step forward the world 🌎 can take.

Yep, that is true. However, we still need to stop global warming! We have already made some species have huge problems due to our heating of the planet, but it will be devastating for many more if we keep burning fossil fuels.

Calling @originalworks :)
img credz: pixabay.com
Steem is behaving weird in low voting percentages, so actual votes can diverge by up to 1 voting percent point.
Nice, you got a 4.0% @minnowbooster upgoat, thanks to @valth
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Thanks for sharing @valth .

No problem! I'm glad you liked it.

This post has received a 0.45 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @banjo.

Terrific work Thank you :)

I'm glad you liked it! :)

Hello friend, how nice that you like nature, the truth are few people who stop to appreciate these beautiful gifts of God, Greetings from Venezuela. Excuse my English, I used a translator to share my opinion with you. Great post.

Hello! Thank you for the comment. I'm glad you liked my post :)

Every animal has his or her story, his or her thoughts, daydreams, and interests.
All feel joy and love, pain and fear, as we now know beyond any shadow of a doubt. All deserve that the human animal afford them the respect of being cared for with great consideration for those interests or left in peace.

Poor little chicks! They (penguins) or some scientist better find a way to change that.

I honestly doubt it's even possible to do anything about it. The glacier that is blocking the ocean is over 2,500 square kilometers, so I don't see how we could possible move it. However, if we're lucky it will drift away on its own :)

Thanks for the comment by the way!

Oh! That's a boomer :/ Hope it will sooner than later..