Thousands of Adélie penguin chicks have starved to death in Antarctica . Climate change has conduce to peculiarly thick sea chicken feed , so parent penguins have had to travel further to find food – leave behind their hungry skirt behind .
French scientist , endure by the World Wide Fund For Nature ( WWF ) , analyze a colony on Petrels Island , Antarctica , with 18,000 gentility pairs . The region is commonly refer to as Terre Adélie ( “ Adélie Land ” ) due to the vast number of penguins that live there .
This twelvemonth , out of all the chicks born in the colony , only two survived . The researcher discovered yard of unhatched testis and drained chicks dust in the snowfall .
“ This devastating event contrasts with the image that many citizenry might have of penguin . It ’s more like ‘ Tarantino does Happy Feet ’ , with beat penguin chicks strewn across a beach in Adélie Land , ” said Rod Downie , WWF ’s head of polar programmes , in astatement .
Four years ago , a alike event happened . The colony – then with 20,196 breeding twain – did n’t create a single surviving bird .
Antarctica has really been suffering from a lack of sea ice in many areas , but Petrels Island is one exception . This is because , back in 2010 , the Mertz glacier clapper break apart , and a huge iceberg the size of Luxembourgbroke off . This happened about 250 km ( 155 miles ) away from Terra Adélie and caused changes in ocean current and ice shaping in the area .
The ice-skating rink stimulate the adult penguins to travel 100 kilometers ( 62 miles ) more than they would normally in search of solid food – they mostly wipe out krill . Meanwhile , the chicks were left athirst and ineffective to cope in the rainy condition due to their down not being rainproof yet .
“ For the consequence , sea ice is increase and this is a problem for this species as it push the feeding place – the ocean glass edge – farther away from their nesting place , ” study leader Yan Ropert - Coudert , from France ’s National Centre for Scientific Research , toldThe Guardian . “ If it shrinks it would help but if it shrinks too much then the food chain they rely on may be impacted . essentially , as a animal of the sea internal-combustion engine , they need an optimum ocean - ice top to prosper . ”
Next week , the EU , along with 25 other country , will discourse the potential establishment of more Antarctic Marine Protected Areas ( MPAs ) at the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources ( CCAMLR ) . Whilst MPAs wo n’t contain climate modification from disrupt sea ice , they might protect penguins , and other marine fauna , from threats like increased touristry and piscary .
" The risk of open up up this area to explorative krill fisheries , which would compete with the Adélie penguin for intellectual nourishment as they recover from two ruinous breeding failures in four years , is unthinkable , " said Downie .
