Adélie penguins on an iceberg near Paulet Island at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
By Henry Fountain.
Photographs by Tom and Munita.
Warming linked to climate change has occurred faster on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula than anywhere else on the planet. That and other factors have led to a decline in Adlie populations.
It is a different story on the eastern side.
The western side of the peninsula is a complete train wreck, according to Heather J. Lynch, who studies penguin populations and how they are changing.
Dr. Lynch organizes penguin-surveying expeditions to the peninsula, the northernmost part of theAntarctica, using satellite imagery in her work. Three of her current and former students did the counting at the islands on the eastern side of the peninsula.
Their work showed that the populations there have not changed much over the last two decades. As global warming continues and Adlie populations decline in other parts of the continent, the Weddell may remain an important refuge for the birds.
It is a confirmation that the climate has not changed as much as the population would have you believe.
The gyre that keeps the pack ice within the sea is what makes the sea notoriously icy. The ice makes it hard for ships to navigate. The explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, was crushed by ice a century ago. The wreck was found last month.
Dr. Lynch's students have done penguin surveys from ships of opportunity, often sailing on cruise ships in return for giving lectures and helping out. Regulations limit shore visits to a specific set of colonies on the western side of the peninsula.
The January trip was aboard a vessel that went around the tip of the peninsula into the northwestern Weddell.
The three researchers used drones and hand-counting to determine the number of chicks at colonies on Joinville, Vortex, Devil and other islands.
Ms. Flynn said hand-counting takes time. Counters can be used to identify a specific area within a colony, or to count all the birds within it. The counting at the Penguin Point colony on Seymour Island took two days. Each year, adlies produce two chick per breeding pair.
It gets tedious, but it is an amazing job to be doing.
There are an estimated 3.8 million breeding pairs of Adélies at colonies all around the continent. They use their beaks to gather stones. In the Southern Hemisphere spring, parents take turns guarding and feeding their chick offspring, as they hatch around November. The adlies eat only a small crustacean called krill, but they also eat fish.
The western side of the peninsula has been experiencing problems due to the lack of ice and krull. Warming has caused sea ice to decline, so as a result, krill have become less abundant.
They don't have enough food to eat because they are so picky on the peninsula.
Populations have declined by as much as 90 percent in some parts of the western side, and the bright orange- beaked penguins have largely taken over.
As the world warms, models suggest that the Ross Sea in West Antarctica will be the last place to become unfavorable to adlies.
As a marine protected area, the Weddell would protect the penguins and other life there from human activities like fishing, as ice cover declines from warming and the area becomes more accessible.
She said that the finding that populations are stable doesn't mean that climate change isn't happening.
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