topic: Penguins

topic: Penguins

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‘Catastrophic breeding failure’ for penguins as Antarctic sea ice vanishes
- Researchers found that a lack of sea ice around Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea led to “unprecedented” breeding failure in four of five emperor penguin colonies.
- Sea ice cover in Antarctica has been experiencing record lows, which could spell disaster for the future of this iconic Antarctic species.
- Previous estimates have suggested that if current rates of global warming persist, more than 90% of emperor penguin colonies would be “quasi-extinct by the end of the century.”

Penguins ‘enrich our lives’: Q&A with Pablo Borboroglu, protector of penguins
- Pablo Garcia Borboroglu, a marine biologist from Patagonia, Argentina, was recently awarded the 2023 Indianapolis Prize for his work in protecting penguins around the world.
- Penguins face many threats, including pollution, human disturbance, and the impacts of fisheries and climate change.
- Borboroglu has helped protect penguins through various actions, including establishing marine and terrestrial protected areas, conservation research programs, and educational programs.

As climate change melts Antarctic ice, gentoo penguins venture further south
- Researchers have discovered a new colony of gentoo penguins in Antarctica previously unknown to science.
- The colony was found on Andersson Island on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which is the furthest south the species has ever been found in that region.
- Scientists say climate change played a key role in the penguins’ presence on the island, as warming temperatures and record ice melt make new locations habitable for the species.
- Scientists and conservationists are making renewed calls to establish a network for marine protected areas in Antarctica to help safeguard the region as the climate rapidly changes.

‘No other choice’: Groups push to protect vast swaths of Antarctic seas
- A coalition of conservation groups is advocating for the establishment of three new marine protected areas (MPAs) in East Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula and the Weddell Sea, which would encompass 4 million square kilometers (1.5 million square miles) of the Southern Ocean, or 1% of the global ocean.
- These proposals will be discussed at an upcoming meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which is due to take place online because of the pandemic.
- Conservationists anticipate that China and Russia may not support these MPA proposals due to fishing interests in the region, although they are optimistic that the MPAs will eventually be approved.

Emperor penguins could disappear by 2100 if nations don’t cap emissions
- Researchers have combined a global climate model that projects where and when sea ice forms and a model of penguin populations to predict how penguin colonies would react to changing sea ice under future climate scenarios.
- The models found that under the business-as-usual scenario, where countries fail to halt climate change, emperor penguin numbers will decline by around 86 percent by 2100.
- However, if countries meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement, limiting the global increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, then emperor penguin numbers would decline by about 31 percent, giving them a fighting chance at survival.

Penguin and seal poop powers life in Antarctica, study finds
- In Antarctica, where colonies of penguins and elephant seals aggregate, their droppings, rich in nitrogen, enrich the soil and support thriving communities of mosses, lichens and invertebrates, a new study has found.
- Ammonia released from penguin and elephant seal feces can influence an area up to 240 times the size of the animal colony, the researchers found.
- These findings can be used to create maps of Antarctica’s biodiversity hotspots, the researchers say.

Large emperor penguin colony suffers ‘catastrophic’ breeding failure
- Until recently, the emperor penguin colony at Halley Bay on the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic was one of the world’s largest, supporting between 14,000 to 25,000 breeding pairs, or around 5 to 9 percent of the bird’s global population.
- Since 2016, satellite images have shown that the colony has suffered a complete breeding failure, something that’s never been recorded before.
- This breeding failure started in 2016 when, following abnormal stormy weather, the sea ice broke up in October, long before the chicks had fledged and were ready to go out to sea. In 2017 and 2018, the sea ice broke up early too, leading to the likely death of all chicks.
- Around the same time, there was a massive increase in the numbers of emperor penguins at the Dawson-Lambton Glacier penguin colony 55 kilometers (34 miles) south of Halley Bay, suggesting that many of the emperor penguins from Halley Bay had moved to Dawson-Lambton.

Bird flu in Namibia’s penguins wanes, after killing nearly 500
- More than 450 African penguins, an IUCN-listed endangered animal, have died in an outbreak of bird flu on three islands off the coast of Namibia.
- The virus, H5N8, is thought to have been introduced to the colonies, which hold 96 percent of Namibia’s penguins, by another bird traveling from South Africa, where a similar outbreak occurred in 2018.
- The disease appears to be abating, and researchers are hopeful that the country’s penguins will recover.
- However, they continue to face threats from food shortages caused by overfishing and climate change.

Why are more female than male Magellanic penguins stranded in South America every year?
- Thousands of Magellanic penguins become stranded every year along the coast of South America, from northern Argentina all the way down to southern Brazil, and are unable to make it back to their breeding grounds in Patagonia 1,000 miles or more away.
- Scientists have observed that the penguins that get left behind are three times as likely to be female as male. But, due to a dearth of data on the penguins’ migratory habits, it could not be determined why there was such a gender-based discrepancy to the strandings.
- New research published this month in the journal Current Biology sheds new light on the situation, however, finding that, among other behavioral differences, female Magellanic penguins are likely to venture farther north than their male counterparts — and that by doing so, they’re more likely to run into the kinds of trouble that can leave them stranded.

Argentina creates two new marine parks to protect penguins, sea lions
- Argentina has officially created two large marine protected areas: the Yaganes Marine National Park, lying off the country’s southern tip, and the Namuncurá-Burdwood Bank II Marine National Park in the South Atlantic.
- Together, the two parks cover a total area of about 98,000 square kilometers (37,000 square miles).
- Industrial fishing is both an important source of revenue for Argentina and a threat to the country’s marine life. But the areas destined to become protected areas have had little fishing activity in recent years, which helped move negotiations in favor of the marine parks.

Photos: Here are the winners of the 2018 British Ecological Society photo contest
- Chris Oosthuizen of South Africa’s University of Pretoria won the top prize in the British Ecological Society’s “Capturing Ecology” photo competition this year with an image of a single colorful adult king penguin amidst a crowd of brown-colored chicks on Marion Island, part of the Prince Edward Islands in the Indian Ocean.
- Oosthuizen is hopeful that the prize-winning photo might help draw attention to the challenges king penguins face due to the impacts of human activities. “Although the global population of king penguins is large, populations inhabiting islands around the Antarctic face an uncertain future,” he said.
- In total, some 16 images were recognized this year by the British Ecological Society. “Capturing flora and fauna from across the planet, subjects range from African wild dog research to an artistic take on Galapagos iguanas to images exploring the relationships between people and nature,” the group said in a statement.

New Zealand penguins make ‘crazy’ 7,000-km round trip for food
- Until recently, researchers did not know where the Fiordland penguins of New Zealand, known locally as tawaki, went to hunt during their pre-moult summer period.
- A new study that tracked 17 penguins has found that the birds made a round trip of up to 6,800 kilometers (4,225 miles) in 2016, making it one of the longest-known pre-moult penguin migrations to date.
- The penguins went nearly halfway to Antarctica, traveling to the sub-tropical front south of Tasmania or to the sub-Antarctic front to hunt, the researchers found.
- It’s not clear why they went so far, given that other penguin species in New Zealand seem to find enough food in the waters near their breeding colonies. Researchers say more studies over several seasons and involving more individual penguins are needed.

Largest king penguin colony in the world has shrunk by 90%
- In 1982, researchers estimated that there were more than 500,000 breeding pairs and over 2 million king penguins on the remote Île aux Cochons, or Pig Island, a French territory in southern Indian Ocean.
- More than three decades later, by 2017, the number of king penguins on the island had dropped drastically to just about 200,000 penguins, including some 60,000 breeding pairs, researchers report in a new study.
- The reasons for this decline are still unknown, but the researchers hope that further field studies will be able to verify the massive drop and identify the factors that led to it.

How to help penguins (photos)
- This photo essay comes via Mongabay’s partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Wild View blog.
- Once a month we’ll publish a contribution from Wild View that highlights an animal species or group.
- This month, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s David Oehler, Megan Maher, and Julie Larsen Maher write about penguins.
- All photos by Julie Larsen Maher, head photographer for WCS.

Audio: How effective is environmental restoration?
- How effective is environmental restoration? On today’s episode, we seek answers to that question through the lens of a much needed new project at the University of Cambridge collecting restoration evidence, and we also speak with the editor of Mongabay’s ongoing series that examines how well a range of other conservation efforts work, too.
- Our first guest today is Claire Wordley, a communications and engagement officer with the Conservation Evidence group at the University of Cambridge in the UK who recently wrote a commentary for Mongabay to alert the world to a new website called Restoration Evidence that collects research into how effective various restoration activities actually are.
- Our second guest is Mongabay’s own Becky Kessler. We’re about to bring the current reporting phase of a series called Conservation Effectiveness to a close, and because Becky has served as the head editor for the series, we wanted to have her on the Newscast to discuss some of the main findings of the series.

Penguin mega-colony discovered using satellites and drones, raising scientists’ hopes
- Scientists have discovered a mega-colony of Adélie penguins in Antarctica’s remote Danger Islands.
- The researchers utilized quadcopter drones to survey the nesting grounds in an automated manner and then used software to process the imagery for individual nests.
- The approach enabled a fast and highly accurate count relative to ground observations.
- The study validates the approach of combining satellite imagery with ground and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveys.

Ecological trap ensnares endangered African penguins
- Juveniles of the Western Cape population of African penguins, an IUCN-listed endangered species, still frequent a subpar hunting ground, even though other options are within reach.
- This population of penguins has declined by 80 percent in recent decades.
- The current research projects that Western Cape penguin numbers are half of what they would be without this ecological trap.

Coastal wildlife paradise declared biosphere reserve in Argentina (PHOTOS)

Southern elephant seals battle for mating rights. Photo by: G. Harris/WCS. Conservationists are celebrating the announcement that UNESCO has dubbed Argentina’s Península Valdés a biosphere reserve under the Man and Biosphere Program (MBA). A hatchet-shaped peninsula that juts out into the Southern Atlantic Ocean, the world’s newest biosphere reserve is home to a hugely-diverse collection […]
Can penguins cope with climate change? Scientists find different types of ice elicit different responses

Human-caused climate change is altering the habitat of Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae). In an article recently published in PLOS ONE, a team of researchers led by Amélie Lescroël from the Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CNRS) in France, found that changes in sea-ice content and newly formed icebergs significantly impacted Adélie penguin communities in the […]
No place like home: scientists discover that male crested penguins head home earlier than females

Male crested penguins are hard workers – especially when it comes to their elaborate breeding ritual. After gathering in massive colonies to mate, they find and establish a nesting site, help incubate the eggs females lay, and then guard the chicks after they hatch. Male crested penguins have also been known to arrive at their […]
Photos: emperor penguins take first place in renowned wildlife photo contest

This was the image Paul had been so hoping to get: a sunlit mass of emperor penguins charging upwards, leaving in their wake a crisscross of bubble trails. The location was near the emperor colony at the edge of the frozen area of the Ross Sea, Antarctica. It was into the only likely exit hole […]
Penguins face a slippery future

Adelie penguins hunting for food. Photo by: J. Weller. Click to enlarge. Pablo Garcia Borboroglu will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 13th, 2012. Penguins have spent years fooling us. With their image seemingly every where we turn—entertaining us in animated films, awing us in documentaries, and winking […]
Cute animal pictures of the day: Humboldt penguin chick meets water

Keeper, Vicky Fryson, helps a Humboldt penguin chick, Pickle, test the water for the first time. Photo by: Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) London Zoo. Humboldt penguins was found along the western edge of South America in Chile and Argentina. They face a barrage of threats including overfishing, drowning as bycatch, El Nino conditions that […]
Cute animal picture of the day: African penguin chick

This African penguin chick is the first one to be born at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) New York Aquarium in 15 years. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher. Found along the coast of southern Africa, the African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) is listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List largely due to overfishing, which is […]
Over 500 dead penguins wash up in Brazil, cause under investigation

Magellanic penguin in Patagonia. Photo by: Michaël Catanzariti. In recent weeks, 512 Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) have washed up dead in Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Although badly composed, researchers do not see any obvious signs why the penguins died, especially in such numbers. Marine biologists are currently performing autopsies on carcasses and […]
Scientists count penguins by satellite, find twice as many as expected (photos)

Satellite images show twice as many emperor penguins as previously thought Map showing the locations of Emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica. Graphic courtesy of the British Antarctic Survey, whose scientists were involved in the research. Click image to enlarge. The population of emperor penguins in Antarctica is nearly twice as high as previously estimated according […]
Paleontologists reconstruct extinct, “elegant” penguin

Two Kairuku penguins come ashore, passing a stranded Waipatia dolphin. Artwork by Chris Gaskin, owner and copyright owner: Geology Museum, University of Otago.. Around 25 million years ago a penguin with a long, sharp beak and massive flippers lived in a New Zealand that was almost entirely underwater. The bird, named Kairuku after a Maori […]
Picture of penguins is a prize-winner

King Penguins coming ashore at Salisbury Plain on South Georgia Island. Photo by Carl Safina, with travel to South Georgia facilitated by Lindblad Expeditions Carl Safina’s picture of King Penguins coming ashore at Salisbury Plain on South Georgia Island was the first winner of mongabay.com’s series of photo contests hosted on Facebook. Fans of the […]
Picture: Baby penguins get cozy

Chinstrap penguin chicks get cozy. Photo by Julie Larsen Maher © WCS. A picture of a pair of chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus) at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Central Park Zoo is one of the highlights of a new blog, Real Chicks of Central Park. The blog aims to raise awareness about penguins, which are at […]
PHOTO: Adorable penguin chicks score their own blog

Chinstrap penguin chick. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher. A new blog, dubbed the Real Chicks of Central Park, is allowing visitors an intimate look at eight impossibly-cute penguin chicks. Including video, photos, and interviews the blog is an attempt to raise awareness about penguins. The highlighted chicks include four gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) and four […]
Photos: New Zealand oil disaster kills over 1200 birds to date

White capped albatross killed by oil. This species is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. Photo ©: Forest & Bird. According to the New Zealand government an oil spill from a grounded container ship in the Bay of Plenty has killed 1,250 seabirds with hundreds of others in rescue centers. However, conservationists […]
Bird-killing oil spill New Zealand’s ‘worst environmental disaster’

View Larger Map A marks the location of Papamoa Beach in the Bay of Plenty. An oil spill from a grounded container ship in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty is threatening to worsen as authorities fear the ship is breaking up. Already, 350 tons of oil from the ship, the MV Rena, has leaked out […]
Sowing the seeds to save the Patagonian Sea

The coastline of the ‘Patagonian Sea’ covered with seabirds and seals. Photo by: W. Conway. Claudio Campagna will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 1st, 2011. With wild waters and shores, the Patagonia Sea is home to a great menagerie of marine animals: from penguins to elephants seals, […]
The great penguin rescue: far-flung community cooperates, sacrifices to save 4,000 penguins from oil spill

Nightingale Island as viewed from Google Earth. One of the world remotest communities, the UK’s Tristan da Cunha archipelago, has come together to save 4,000 endangered penguins following a devastating oil spill, reports the Guardian . Last month a freighter ran aground on Nightingale Island releasing 1,500 tons of oil, potentially devastating the local population […]
Antarctic penguins losing to climate change through 80% krill decline

Chinstrap penguins. Photo by: NOAA/Mike Goebel. . Climate change has hit species of Antarctic penguins by causing a staggering decline in their prey: krill. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found that both chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus) and Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) have seen their populations decline […]
Photos: penguins devastated by oil spill

Northern rockhopper penguins covered in oil. Photo by: Tristan Conservation Team of Simon Glass, Wayne Swain and Matthew Green. Courtesy of: The Tristan da Cunha Website. Disturbing photos show northern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes moseleyi) hit hard by an oil spill from a wrecked cargo ship on Nightingale Island in the Southern Atlantic. Already listed as […]
Hundreds of endangered penguins covered in oil after remote spill

Nightingale Island as viewed from Google Earth. Conservation workers have found hundreds of oiled northern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes moseleyi) after a cargo vessel wrecked on Nightingale Island, apart of the UK’s Tristan da Cunha archipelago. Northern rockhopper penguins are listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List. According to a press release by BirdLife International, […]
In the midst of marine collapse will we save our last ocean?

An interview with David Ainley. Imagine an ocean untouched by oil spills: a sea free of pollution, invasive species, dead zones, and over-exploitation; waters where marine animals exist in natural abundance and play ecological roles undimmed by mankind. Such a place may sound impossible in today’s largely depleted oceans, but it exists: only discovered in […]
The penguin crisis: over 60 percent of the world’s penguins threatened with extinction

Everyone loves penguins. With their characteristic black-and-white ‘tuxedo’ markings, upright waddle, and childlike stature, penguins seem at once exotic and familiar: exotic because they live far from most human habitations, familiar because they appear in innumerable books and movies. From Mr. Popper’s Penguins to Happy Feet, and from March of the Penguins to And Tango […]
Rockhopper penguins benefit from new park in Argentina

Southern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes chrysocome) are easily distinguished by the spiked plumes on their head, their neon-yellow eyebrows, and red eyes. But these wild-looking penguins are also endangered: the IUCN Red List classifies them as Vulnerable to extinction due to pollution and drowning by fishing nets. But, the penguins are now receiving some help: Argentina […]
Falklands Dispute: Argentine Sovereignty Won’t Solve the Problem

With Britain now moving to explore for oil and gas in the Falkland Islands, Argentina has cried foul. Buenos Aires claims that the Falklands, or the Malvinas as Argentines refer to the islands, represent a “colonial enclave” in the south Atlantic. The islands have been a British possession since 1833, and the local inhabitants consider […]
Photo: guano stains helps researchers track penguins by satellite

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have uncovered a novel way to locate the world’s largest penguin’s breeding sites, employing satellite imagery they seek out emperor penguin guano, droppings which show up starkly on the otherwise unsullied white sea ice of Antarctica. Searching for the penguins themselves had proven too difficult, since the birds’ […]
Photos: 13,000 species found in Arctic, Antarctic Oceans

Global warming may doom emperor penguins to extinction

Studying world’s rarest penguin leads to the discovery of a new species

Studying world’s rarest penguin leads to the discovery of a new species Studying world’s rarest penguin leads to the discovery of a new species Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com November 19, 2008
2-degree rise in temperature may doom penguins colonies

2-degree rise in temperature may doom penguins colonies 2-degree rise in temperature may doom penguins mongabay.com October 10, 2008
Global warming puts penguins at risk of extinction

Global warming puts penguins at risk of extinction Global warming puts penguins at risk of extinction mongabay.com February 11, 2008 Climate change could put the long-term survival of sub-Antarctic King Penguins at risk by reducing the availability of prey, reports a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Image courtesy of […]
New Park in Argentina Protects 500,000 Penguins

New Park in Argentina Protects 500,000 Penguins New Park in Argentina Protects 500,000 Penguins mongabay.com August 9, 2007 The government of Argentina will create a new marine park along the coast of Patagonia, reports the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society. Located in Golfo San Jorge, the park will protect more than half a million penguins […]
Past global warming produced monster penguins

Past global warming produced giant penguins Past global warming produced monster penguins mongabay.com June 25, 2007 Scientists have discovered fossil remains of a giant species of penguin that lived some 40 million years ago in what is now Peru. Coupled with the finding of a smaller species from the same time period, the remains reveal […]
Penguins in Alaska?

Penguins in Alaska? Penguins in Alaska? mongabay.com June 5, 2007 Penguins found in Alaskan waters likely reach the Northern Hemisphere by fishing boat rather than by swimming, report University of Washington researchers. Penguins, except for a species found in the Galapagos at the Equator, are naturally found exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Writing in the […]
Can penguins be used as bio-indicators of climate change?

Can penguins be used as bio-indicators of climate change? Can penguins be used as bio-indicators of climate change? mongabay.com April 4, 2007 Scientists at the University of Birmingham are working to determine whether the king penguin can be used as a bio-indicator for global warming. “If penguins are travelling further or diving deeper for food, […]
African penguin population drops 40% – cause unknown

African penguin population drops 40% – cause unknown African penguin population drops 40% – cause unknown mongabay.com March 2, 2007 African penguin populations have fallen by 40 percent in the past few years according to an article published in the March 2, 2006 issue of Science. Biologists are puzzled by the decline. African penguins on […]
‘Happy Feet’ penguins declining fast in the Falklands

Happy Feet’ penguins declining fast in the Falklands ‘Happy Feet’ penguins declining fast in the Falklands mongabay.com December 22, 2006 The rockhopper penguin, a species featured in the movie Happy Feet, has taken a suffered a 30 percent population decline over the past five years according to the latest survey figures from Falklands Conservation, a […]

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