Emperor penguins are now in danger due to shrinking sea ice due to climate change
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Emperor penguins, the largest species of penguin, are now listed as endangered following a new international assessment of how climate change is affecting their habitat and populations.
The new classification is more than just a change in the status of a species. This is another serious sign of how human-induced climate change is damaging the ecosystem in Antarctica. where sea snow has fallen To record minimum.
Penguins depend on sea ice while raising chicks and during the moulting season, when they shed old feathers and can no longer swim safely out to sea. But sea ice is already breaking down as the planet warms, according to an assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which maintains the global red list of threatened species.
Philip Trathan, a member of the IUCN expert group that worked on it, said, “The emperor penguin is a sentinel species that tells us about our changing world and how well we are controlling the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.” Red List assessment of emperor penguins.
The assessment states that satellite analysis shows that spring populations of emperor penguins have been declining for more than a decade. While the population remains large – with about 256,500 breeding pairs in 54 colonies according to remote sensing surveys in 2020 – it has declined by about 10 percent from 2009 to 2018.
The number of chicks and other non-breeding penguins is not known, partly because the remote Antarctic region is so difficult to monitor. Depending on how much the planet warms, emperor penguin populations could decline by 30 to 59 percent over the next three generations, the assessment said.
“Penguins are already one of the most threatened birds on Earth. The emperor penguin’s move to endangered is a stark warning: climate change is accelerating the extinction crisis before our eyes,” said Martin Harper, CEO of BirdLife International, the global partnership of non-governmental organizations that coordinates IUCN’s penguin assessment.
The Antarctic fur seal joins the emperor penguin in being moved to the endangered category after its population declined by more than half between 1999 and 2025. The fur seal is suffering because its food source, krill, is being pushed into deeper waters due to climate change and warmer water temperatures.
The IUCN assessment states that krill depletion is reducing the survival of seal pups, and the overall population is aging.
The emperor penguin was previously classified as “Near Threatened” on the IUCN Red List. Its new “endangered” designation means it now faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild.
The assessment recommends close monitoring of emperor penguins’ sea-ice habitat, using satellite surveys to better understand how their populations are changing.
