Earth Equity News

Retreating Ice Threatens Penguins. By Fen Montaigne, New Yorker, December 21, 2009 issue. "The northwestern Antarctic Peninsula has heated up faster than almost any other place on earth. Since Bill Fraser, an ecologist and penguin expert, first arrived at Palmer Station, in 1974, the population of Adélie penguins on the seven islands that compose his major study area has declined from between thirty thousand and forty thousand breeding pairs to fifty-six hundred breeding pairs, a drop of more than eighty per cent. Most of Fraser's work involves spending long days in the field with his team, measuring snow depth, counting penguins and seabirds, and sampling guano to check what's in their diets. Over the past two decades, Fraser and his colleagues have identified two main culprits in the decline of the region's Adélie penguins. One is the steady loss of sea ice along the northwestern Antarctic Peninsula. The second is a related increase in snowfall, which has primarily interfered with the ability of Adélies to successfully breed and incubate their eggs." See audio slide show (2:48 min.).