Emperor penguin populations are in decline

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-03-13 11:01

Australia; New Zealand; TAS

Image by Siggy Nowak from Pixabay

The global population of emperor penguins is declining by around −1.3% per year, according to Australian, NZ and international researchers, although they don't yet know the reason why. The researchers found that in 2018 there were around 24,000 fewer adults at breeding colonies in spring compared to 2009 numbers. The researchers found that changes across the continent varied by region, and observed trends were not linked with sea ice conditions.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Advances in remote sensing of emperor penguins: first multi-year time series documenting trends in the global population

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Summary: Our study suggests that, across Antarctica, there are fewer emperor penguins in 2018 than there were in 2009, but we do not know the cause of this apparent decrease. Because modeling studies suggest population declines of emperor penguins by the year 2100, we aimed to gain empirical evidence of their global status. We used counts at colonies, satellite images, and Bayesian modeling to learn that changes across the continent varied by region and observed trends were not linked with sea ice conditions. We established a framework for global monitoring of emperor penguins and other ice-obligates in Antarctica.

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Journal/
conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Canterbury, Australian Antarctic Division

Funder: National Science Foundation (grant no. 1748898) to M.L.R. (grant nos. 1744794 and 2037561) to S.J. and (grant no. 2046437) to D.Z.; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (grant no. 80NSSC20K1289) to S.J.; WWF-UK (grant no. GB095701) to P.F. and P.N.T.; IPEV program 137 ANTAVIA to C.L.B.; AWI program MARE/SPOT to C.L.B. and D.Z.; German Research Foundation (DFG) (grant nos. ZI1525/3-1 and ZI1525/7-1 to D.Z.

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