MillenniumPost
Editorial

Another extinction

If there has been the discovery of a really tragic extinction, this certainly is it. The world's largest colony of king penguins has shrunk by almost 90 per cent in the last three decades! The colony lies on the sub-Antarctic French island of Île aux Cochons or Pig Island, and once housed over two million king penguins. In 1982, it was not only the world's largest king penguin colony but also the second-largest colony of all penguins. However, when researchers from the Chizé Center for Biological Studies (CNRS) returned to survey the island in 2016 and 2017, the colony had collapsed. The collapse had to be seen to be believed. The total population had shrunk by 88 per cent, down to just 200,000 king penguins. Earlier, there had been half a million breeding pairs, now, only 60,000 remain. The remote island in the southern Indian Ocean is so inaccessible that researchers have not been able to conduct new population estimates for decades, leaving the exact cause of the population drop a mystery. However, there are several possible factors, which have been explored in the full report published last week in the Antarctic Science journal. Photographs and satellite images taken over the decades found that the colony's territory has shrunk, being taken over by encroaching vegetation. The decline began in the late-1990s, the same time a major climatic event related to the cyclical weather phenomenon El Niño took place in the Southern Ocean, potentially affecting the penguins' ability to forage for food. Other possible causes include diseases such as avian cholera, invasive predators, and what the team calls "density-dependent effects" -- as populations grow, competition between individuals can increase, triggering food shortages and an overall decline for the group. However, "the cause of the massive decline of the colony still remains a great mystery." The paper concludes, "Although the decline started at least 20 years ago, it appears to be ongoing, and the causes of the decline may still be active." The report also details the non-invasive methods used to study the population, including photographing the colony from helicopters. Oddly, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) currently lists king penguins as those of "least concern" on the Red List of Threatened Species. But, recent studies have indicated looming threats to these amazing creatures. A study published in February suggested that global warming was destroying king penguin habitats at such a rate that by 2100, 70 per cent of the world's king penguin population could be forced to move elsewhere or perish. The CNRS researchers, in partnership with staff from the National Nature Reserve of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands and the French Polar Institute, will now begin working to verify the initial conclusions laid out in the report. Perhaps, on a war footing, something can still be done to ensure that king penguins do not vanish altogether.

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