PENGUINS DISAPPEARING

Antarctica, 2013 - photographer, Marilyn Morningstar

PENGUINS ARE DISAPPEARING

Please watch the video below if you love penguins!

Krill decline quickly as sea ice disappears
Ice is the source of all life in Antarctica.  It may seem at odds to think that ice gives life, but when you connect the dots, it’s a straight line to a penguin’s belly. Algae live on top of the ice and underneath it too, providing a grazing ground for the krill that amass beneath -- the way a raccoon chooses to hide in a garbage can. Krill mostly stay put under the frozen Southern Ocean.  But as the ice sheet disappears due to climate change, that habitat shrinks and moves further south. MORE

More NBC Antarctica Report Videos

1. 45 Degrees in Antarctica & Penguins

2. 2013 Global Flood & Penguins

3. Penguins Disappearing along with the Ice

Marine biologist Fabrice Genevois speaks with NBC's Kerry Sanders
 about Gentoo penguins and their extraordinary way of swimming which
 at times can appear as if they are "flying." 

4. Silly Adelie Penguins
5. Chinstrap Penguins

By Mark KinverScience and environment reporter, BBC News

A number of penguin species found in western Antarctica are declining as a result of a fall in the availability of krill, a study has suggested.

Researchers, examining 30 years of data, said chinstrap and Adelie penguin numbers had been falling since 1986.

Warming waters, less sea-ice cover and more whale and seal numbers was cited as reducing the abundance of krill, the main food source for the penguins.

The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is a shrimp-like creature that reach lengths of about 6cm (2in) and is considered to be one of the most abundant species on the planet, being found in densities of up to 30,000 creatures in a cubic-metre of seawater.

It is also one of the key species in the ecosystems in and around Antarctica, as it is the dominant prey of nearly all vertebrates in the region, including chinstrap and Adelie penguins.

Warming to change

In their paper, a US team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said a number of factors were combining to change the shape of the area's environment.

"The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) and adjacent Scotia Sea support abundant wildlife populations, many of which were nearly [wiped out] by humans," they wrote.

"This region is also among the fastest warming areas on the planet, with 5-6C increases in mean winter air temperatures and associated decreases in winter sea-ice cover."

They added that analysis of data gathered during 30 years of field studies, and recent penguin surveys, challenged a leading scientific idea, known as the "sea-ice hypothesis", about how the region's ecosystems was changing.

"(It) proposes that reductions in winter sea-ice have led directly to declines in 'ice-loving' species by decreasing their winter habitat, while populations of 'ice-avoiding' species have increased," they explained.

However, they said that their findings showed that since the mid 1980s there had been a decline in both ice-loving Adelies (Pygoscelis adeliae) and ice-avoiding chinstraps (Pygoscelis antarctica), with both populations falling by up to 50%.

As a result, the researchers favoured a "more robust" hypothesis that penguin population numbers were linked to changes in the abundance of their main food source, krill.

"Linking trends in penguin abundance with trends in krill biomass explains why populations of Adelie and chinstrap penguins increased after competitors (fur seals, baleen whales and some fish) were nearly extirpated in the 19th to mid-20th Centuries, and currently are decreasing in response to climate change," they wrote.

The team said that it was estimated that there was in the region of 150 million tonnes of krill for predators after the global hunting era depleted the world's whale population.

During this period, data shows that there was a five-fold increase in chinstrap and Adelie numbers at breeding sites from the 1930s to the 1970s, they reported.

"The large populations of Adelie and chinstrap penguins were not sustained for long, however, and are now declining precipitously."

They added that this was happening as rising temperatures and decreases in sea-ice was altering the physical conditions required to sustain large krill populations.

"We hypothesize that the amount of krill available to penguins has declined because of the increased competition from recovering whale and fur seal populations, and from bottom-up, climate-driven changes that have altered this ecosystem significantly during the past two to three decades."

The US researchers concluded that the penguin numbers and krill abundance were likely to fall further if the warming trend in the region continued.

They wrote: "These conditions are particularly critical for chinstrap penguins because this species breeds almost exclusively in the WAP and Scotia Sea, where they have sustained declines in excess of 50% throughout their breeding range."

PHOTOGRAPHY 2013 BY MARILYN MORNINGSTAR - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

When I visited the penguins in Antarctica last February  my love affair with penguins was solidified for life. They are like miniature people just going about their busy little lives, trying to get their chores done. I fell head over heals and to my utter dismay, I learned while on that research voyage that some of the penguin populations have shrunk by 50%! My heart fell apart at this awareness and I didn't really know what to do. I felt helpless. I felt frightened. I felt disheartened. I knew I could never do anything my self, nothing that would be substantial enough to really make a difference and then I remembered my version of the "Starfish Story" that I once posted on my website www.worldwideorphanages.com

Here it is:

One day a learned man was walking down the beach and noticed a little figure in the distance, moving like a dancer. As he grew closer, he saw a little girl in a pink bathing suit. She wasn’t dancing, but bending down over and over again, throwing something into the sea.
When he got closer he realized she was picking up starfish that had washed up on the sand. The man chuckled and shook his head, “Why are you throwing those starfish into the ocean?”
The little girl pointed up, “The sun is hot and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they will die.”
At hearing this the man replied, “Don’t you see that there are thousands of starfish along many miles of beach? Your little effort can’t possibly make much of a difference.”
The little girl looked up at him with big blue eyes and then bent down again. She picked up another starfish and threw it into the water. As the wave took it away, she smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one.”

 I CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! I CAN DO MY LITTLE SHARE TO TALK TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT WHAT I WAS AN EYEWITNESS TO IN ANTARCTICA. I CAN SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE PENGUINS LOSING NUMBERS. I HOPE YOU WILL HELP THE PENGUINS TOO! PLEASE SEND A LINK TO THIS BLOG OUT TO YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, NEIGHBORS, AND ASSOCIATES. Note: please write for permission to use my photography. Thanks!

WE ARE LOSING OUR PENGUIN POPULATIONS

FIND OUT WHY

Emperor penguins like it cold. Now, scientists have determined that the penguins' susceptibility to climate change accounts for a dramatic decline in their number over the past half century.

Over the past 50 years, the population of Antarctic emperor penguins has declined by 50 percent. Using the longest series of data available, researchers have shown that an abnormally long warm spell in the Southern Ocean during the late 1970s contributed to a decline in the population of emperor penguins at Terre Adelie, Antarctica.

"We knew since the 1980s that emperor penguins had declined, but it is only today, because of the improvements of our knowledge in the climate-ocean processes, that we have been able to understand why they have decreased," said Henri Weimerskirch of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Villers en Bois, France.

The warm spell of the late 1970s is related to the Antarctic circumpolar wave—huge masses of warm and cold water that circle Antarctica about once every eight years. In response to this cycle, Terre Adelie experiences a warming period every four or five years that generally lasts about a year.

In the late 1970s, however, the warming continued for several years. Whether it was the result of natural climate variability in the Antarctic circumpolar wave cycle or an anomaly related to global warming is not possible to determine because air and sea surface temperature data from many years ago are not available. Weimerskirch thinks the unusually warm spell was probably the result of global warming.

Shrinking Levels of Ice

Warmer air and sea surface temperatures in the Antarctic reduce the amount of ice in the sea. This, in turn, leads to smaller populations of krill, a shrimp-like crustacean that is a staple of the emperor penguin's diet. With less food to eat, emperor penguins die.

Read the full article at National Geographic
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/05/0509_penguindecline.html

 

ADD YOUR NAME TO THE SWELL

Antarctica's great Southern Ocean is the last pristine ocean wilderness left on Earth. This year leaders from 25 countries have an opportunity to create the world's largest marine sanctuaries around Antarctica. The proposals are in front of them, the science has been done, all they need to do is say YES. Tell our leaders to make the right decision when they meet this year and protect these waters for future generations.

Share this video and visit our website to take action: JOIN US! SIGN HERE!