Bali Island, Indonesia - Global warming threatens the penguin population of Antarctica as four species have declined up to 66 per cent over the past 25 years, to the environmental group World Wide Fund for Nature said Tuesday.
The report "Antarctic Penguins and Climate Change" global warming is taking away precious ground on which species raise their young, while others have lost their food sources to overfishing related to shrinking ice mass.
"The Antarctic penguins already have a long march behind them," says Anna Reynolds, deputy director of WWF's Global Climate Change Programme. "Now it seems these icons of the Antarctic will have to face an extremely tough battle to adapt to the unprecedented rate of climate change."The Antarctic is warming five times faster than the average rate of global warming, the group said, while the vast Southern Ocean has warmed all the way down to a depth of 3,000 metres.
Sea ice covers 40 per cent less area than it did 26 years ago off the West Antarctic Peninsula. That has led to reduced numbers of krill, the main source of food for Chinstrap penguins, it said.
The number of Chinstraps decreased by as much as 30 to 66 percent in some colonies, the report said, adding that the Gentoo penguins were suffering similar pressures.
Some Emperor penguin colonies halved in size over the past half century, the WWF said, noting that warmer winter temperatures and stronger winds mean that the penguins had to raise their chicks on increasingly thinner sea ice.
"For many years, sea ice has broken off early and many eggs and chicks have been blown away before they were ready to survive on their own," it said.
On the north-western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, where warming has been the most dramatic, populations of Adélie Penguins "have dropped by 65 percent over the past 25 years." Not only has food become scarcer with the disappearance of sea ice, but the Adelies' warmer-weather cousins the Gentoos and Chinstraps have also invaded the region.
Warmer temperatures mean that the atmosphere can hold more moisture, which in turn brings more snow. Scientists expressed fears that the Adelie penguins, which need land that is free of snow to raise their young, could lose habitat to the other species.
"The food web of Antarctica, and thus the survival of penguins and many other species, is bound up in the future of the sea ice," said James P Leape, director general of WWF International.
"After such a long march to Bali, ministers must now commit to sharp reductions in carbon emissions for industrialized countries, to protect Antarctica and safeguard the health of the planet."
Governmental delegates, scientists and environmentalists from nearly 190 countries are in Nusa Dua for the conference that began December 3 and lasts through Friday.
Their goal is to lay the groundwork for a new international initiative to combat climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
