Satellite mapping technology has discovered another new colony of highly endangered emperor penguins, in Antarctica, researchers revealed.
The discovery, announced by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) to mark Penguin Awareness Day, brings the total number of known emperor penguin breeding sites around the Antarctic coastline to 66.
This is the latest in a series of Emperor penguin breeding sites detected using satellite technology.
18 species of penguins
The bird, which is endemic to Antarctica and the largest of the 18 penguin species at around 1.2 meters (nearly four feet), faces near-complete destruction due to climate change and the loss of sea ice.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service last year placed emperor penguins, which need sea ice to breed, on the endangered species list, calling the move an “alarm bell” and a “call to action”.
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New projections show that under current warming trends, 80 percent of colonies will be extinct by the end of this century.
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Scientists from BAS discovered the latest site, home to around 500 birds, by identifying signs of penguin droppings, known as guano, in the landscape at Verleger Point in West Antarctica.
Guano stains the snow and rock terrain so brown that it’s easy to spot, while birds that can’t fly on their own are too small to see from satellites.
– ‘Good news’ –
The researchers studied images from the EU’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission and compared them with high-resolution footage from the MAXAR WorldView3 satellite.
Peter Fretwell, who studies wildlife from space at BAS and is lead author of the research revealing the findings, called it “exciting” but warned that existential risks to birds remain.
“While this is good news, like many sites recently discovered, this colony is small and, in an area affected by recent sea ice,” he said.
Emperor penguins are found in areas that are particularly difficult to study because they are remote, inaccessible and extremely cold, with temperatures dropping to minus 60 Celsius (-76 Fahrenheit), according to the BAS.
Researchers have been searching for new colonies for 15 years by searching satellite images for penguin guano.
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The technology also helped BAS detect “catastrophic” breeding failures among Antarctica’s second largest Emperor colony between 2016 and 2019.
Nearly all chicks born in a three-year period die as Antarctic habitat shrinks as warm weather and abnormal storms destroy critical sea ice.
Emperor came to global fame with the 2005 documentary, “March of the Penguins”, describing the annual trek on the ice waste, and the 2006 cartoon film “Happy Feet”.
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