Huge Colony Of Adélie Penguins Under Threat
A whole colony of Adélie penguins is facing the prospect of extinction after an iceberg that is bigger in size than Luxembourg ended up landing at Commonwealth Bay and is blocking the penguins access to the sea and forcing the birds to travel considerably further in order to feed. The population of the colony has dramatically dropped from 160,000 to 10,000 since the iceberg hit the shore in 2010.
Penguins are trapped
The iceberg has effectively trapped the colony of penguins which used to thrive courtesy of easy access to Commonwealth Bay. However once the iceberg became grounded, the distance required for the penguins to travel and feed became 75 miles round trip. Adélie penguins tend to return to the same colony where they were hatched as well as return to the same mate to nest and it is very rare from the species to deviate from this behaviour.
“They don’t migrate, they’re stuck there. They’re dying …The ones that are surviving are clearly struggling. They can barely survive themselves, let alone hatch the next generation. We saw lots of dead birds on the ground … it’s just heart-breaking to see.”Chris Turney, professor of Climate Change and Earth Sciences at the University of New South Wales said.
Global warming not helping
The iceberg measures 1,120 square miles and comes in at a whopping 60 miles long. Unless the iceberg moves or breaks up the entire colony of Adélie penguins at Cape Denison could be destroyed by 2020. Dr Turney says that as the earth warms, more ice will melt and the reality is that there will be more icebergs released from Antarctica that will end up embedded along the coastline which make the distance some of these colonies have to travel for food much further than they ever have been.
Melting ice could also be a boon
There is however some positive news, because some of the fast ice that is associated with the iceberg has started to break up in Commonwealth Bay over the last year says co-author of the study Chris Fogwill of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre.
