Climate: for the king penguins, the exile is uncertain, or the death

AFP

AFP

Monday, February 26, 2018 12:04

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Monday, February 26, 2018 12:10

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PARIS | Facing the climate change, the king penguins are at risk of starvation, at least run the risk of exile in a southern ocean unwelcoming to their colonies giant, of which 70 % could vanish by the end of the century, according to a study published Monday.

White belly, beak black, with an orange spot on the side of the head, the 1.6 million pairs of king penguins, a little smaller than emperors (a bit less than a metre high), live in particular on the sub-antarctic islands of Crozet, Kerguelen and Prince Edward, one of the only adapted to such colonies huge.

To lay the egg that the male and the female convent alternatively for more than 50 days, the large bird that does not fly is in need of a beach, a sea ice-free and a source of abundant food and close enough to bring it back to eat at the chick for over a year.

But the warming climate is pushing today towards the south, further away from their colonies, the reserve is alive with fish and octopus which they feed on for thousands of years, notes the study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The voyage of the parent for go fish will be more and more long, threatening the survival of the little left on the ground with the other parent, unless they try the exile and the move towards a destination uncertain.

Result: “If no action is taken to stop or control global warming (…), the species could disappear in the near future “, summed up in the AFP’s three main authors, Robin Cristofari and Céline Le Bohec, researchers at the CNRS, and Emiliano Trucchi, of the Italian university of Ferrara.

If greenhouse gas emissions are rising throughout the Twenty-first century, following the worst-case scenario of the group of experts of the UN on climate change (Ipcc), ” 70 % of the 1.6 million breeding pairs present are likely to move abruptly or disappear before the end of the century “, according to the study.

Competition for the “rough”

And even with some scenarios more optimistic of the Ipcc, of the colonies, representing 45% of the population may still be endangered, according to the researchers.

The king penguins have managed to survive, at the cost of heavy losses, to other environmental changes, and the last 20 000 years. They seem, therefore, “able to explore quite efficiently the Southern ocean to locate the best shelter when things go wrong,” said Emiliano Trucchi in a press release.

But ” there is only a handful of islands in the Southern ocean, and very few have the capacity to accommodate the huge colonies that we know today “, has tempered Robin Cristofari, even if the authors refer to, it is still a possible refuge further south, for example on the island of Bouvet.

In addition, during their previous adaptations forced the penguins had had more time to move, compared to the current pace of climate change, which could this time be fatal.

“The competition for nesting sites and food will be tough, especially with other species like the penguin chinstrap, penguin papuan or the penguin Adélie – not to mention the fisheries,” commented Céline Le Bohec.

And the king penguins may not be the only ones that have to face the dilemma between remaining in their colony to breed at risk of dying of hunger or from without collateral in search of a new refuge closest to the pantry.

“In the southern Ocean, marine birds, including many species of penguins –or even all– but also of marine mammals (such as fur seal sub-antarctic) could face the same dilemma,” noted the three authors.