Helpless emperor penguin chicks perished at multiple breeding grounds in West Antarctica late last year, drowning or freezing to death when sea ice eroded by global warming gave way under their tiny feet, scientists have said.
Of five sites monitored in the Bellingshausen Sea region, all but one experienced a 100 percent loss of chicks, researchers reported in Communications Earth & Environment, a Nature journal, on Thursday.
They called it a “catastrophic breeding failure”.
“This is the first major breeding failure of emperor penguins across several colonies due to sea ice loss, and is probably a sign of things to come,” lead author Peter Fretwell, a researcher at the British Antarctic Survey, told the AFP news agency.
“We have been predicting it for some time, but actually seeing it happening is grim.”
Last year’s southern hemisphere spring – from mid-September to mid-December – saw record-low sea ice in the Southern Ocean, especially along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, a prime breeding ground for the world’s largest penguin species.
Original from www.aljazeera.com