Once hunted to the brink of extinction, the thousands of king penguins that live densely each year on remote Possession Island now face a new threat: climate change. The birds spend most of their lives at sea, but come breeding season in December, half the world’s population arrives on islands in the Crozet Archipelago of the southern Indian Ocean, roughly halfway between Antarctica and the southeastern tip of Africa.
Robin Cristofari, a penguin expert at the University of Turku in Finland, looks at a colony in a bay on the island of Position.
“This species was not far from extinction” after being killed by seal hunters in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, he said.
Christopheri said that when hunters ran out of seals to kill, they used penguins as fuel, burning them in cauldrons to melt the seal’s fat.
He said that for a short time he also made penguin oil, “but it was not of good quality”.
King penguin populations increased again in the late 20th century, but their numbers stabilized about 20 years ago.
“After that first hurdle, the species now faces a second, more insidious one: climate change,” Cristoffari said.
He was lead author of a 2018 study that found global warming was on track to wipe out 70 percent of the world’s king penguins by the end of the century.
polar front
King penguins are just over a meter (three feet) tall and have a black-and-white tuxedo with bright orange on their necks and beaks.
They only return to land to breed, and are very picky about where they do so.
It must be a dry place, without winter sea ice around the island, and have a smooth beach of sand or pebbles as well as plentiful, accessible sources of food.
This means breeding sites must be close to the Antarctic Polar Front, where cold waters from the south converge with warm north currents to create an area abundant with fish, squid and other seafood.
In January, the polar front is usually about 350 kilometers (about 220 mi) south of the Crozet Islands.
But during hot years it can be up to 750 kilometers away – too far for penguins to obtain food and quickly return to their hungry chicks and relief mates.
“Breeding success is directly related to distance from the polar front,” Christopheri said.
But with human-driven climate change warming the globe as the polar front drifts south, Crozet Island may soon be uninhabitable for king penguins.
And that would leave the flightless birds with only a handful of islands in the south, many of which can’t sustain large breeding colonies.
“We’re not worried about the species, the population won’t disappear in the next 50 years,” Christopheri said. But their way of life could be severely disrupted, he said.
playful and curious
King penguins live for about 25 years and have their first chicks when they are about six or seven years old.
Of the more than one million breeding pairs worldwide, about half breed on the Crozet Islands.
They usually arrive in early November, select and mate with mates to whom they will remain faithful for a year.
The parents share similar responsibilities during the 50-day incubation period and during the first month after the chick hatches.
Cristofari said the “playful and curious” birds flock to vast nesting colonies on the islands, carefully rolling their eggs between their legs.
Finding a spot among the crowd, Christopheri said, mates use their abdomens to warm their precious future offspring.
The parents, not caring for the eggs or chicks, go out to sea in search of food. Their mate on land can live without food for up to a month.
The chicks are well fed until May and then fast during the Southern Hemisphere winter. The parents return to feed their offspring, sometimes until spring.
“The timing of the cycle is to make it as easy as possible for the chick, ideally during the peak of heat, to begin feeding on its own,” Cristoffari said.
Then, a full year after hatching, the hungry penguins enter the water for the first time to catch their meal.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)