Climate Change is Decimating the Chinstrap Penguins of Antarctica

Chinstrap penguins are exquisitely adapted to their environment. They live and breed in some of the world’s harshest conditions, nesting in the windblown, rocky coves of the Antarctic Peninsula, a strip of land comprising the northernmost part of the frigid continent. In water they are precision hunters, darting after krill, the tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that are their sole food source, utilizing barbed tongues engineered for catching the slipperiest of prey. On land, these 2-2.5-foot-tall flightless birds are prodigious mountaineers, able to scale rocky escarpments in spite of their ungainly waddle. Their perfect adaptation to local conditions makes them the ideal barometer for the future of the region. If anything changes in the marine environment, the health of chinstrap penguins will be one of the most reliable indicators. They are the canaries of the Southern Ocean. And these endearing, black and white emissaries from Antarctic waters are starting to disappear. Christian Åslund —Greenpeace and TIMEScientists Noah Strycker and Steven Forrest from Stony Brook University counting penguins on Snow Island in the South Shetlands of Antarctica, on Jan. 31, 2020. Scientists conducting a chinstrap census along the Antarctic Peninsula have discovered drastic declines in many colonies, with some seeing population reductions of up to 77% since they were last surveyed, about 50 years ago. The independent researchers, who hitched a ride on a Greenpeace expeditio...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized biodiversity climate change embargoed study Source Type: news