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Research
The Emperor Penguin: mascot of the South
Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest continent in the world, with up to 200 mile/hr winds plummeting around the edge of the continent. On vast planes of sea ice in this uninhabitable wasteland, we can find our beloved mascot of the South: the Emperor penguin.
However, now they desperately need our help - with increasing ocean temperatures, their frozen home is melting unexpectedly under their feet, and they are under threat of extinction by the end of the century.
Why are Emperor penguins under threat from climate change?
Emperor penguins have a very delicate breeding cycle, which relies on sea ice. Every winter, they settle in colonies on sea ice to breed and bring up chicks. When the chicks hatch, the parent penguins take turns using the edges and holes of the ice to reach the ocean, where they hunt for fish, krill, squid and plankton. They then feed the catch to their chicks, which are unable to swim and hunt for themselves for the first 6 months of their life, due to their water-absorbent brown coats.
But now, their colonies are in danger. The penguins create their colonies on thick ice in the winter, thinking the platform will last until their chicks grow up as it usually does. But, the ice is starting to melt earlier in the year than they expect - before their chicks develop waterproof coats, which causes all the colony's chicks to drown. This has already happened to a few colonies in the past year. If Antarctica loses all of its sea ice, that will be the end of the Emperor penguin in Antarctica, and their population decline has already begun.
Emperor penguin breeding cycle
What is the research?
The research team from the British Antarctic Survey have used drones to image the Emperor penguins on Snow Hill island. They are using these images to better understand how reliable satellite images are as a tool for penguin population monitoring, and to integrate the penguin count findings into machine learning algorithms. They are doing this with the hope of being able to better track populations all around the continent from space. So, in participating in this project, you aren't only counting the penguins in Antarctica, but allowing researchers to accurately monitor penguin populations in the future, and from space!
Emperor penguin colony on Snow Hill island from a drone
How will this research help the penguins?
Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey have the power to influence protective policy for areas in the polar regions. Learning more about polar wildlife will help us choose the most helpful areas to protect, and more accurate and complete population information. This will provide a stronger argument for creating new policies that may prevent more extreme consequences of climate change.
The changes in biodiversity in the polar regions will also have an effect on changes elsewhere, since global ecosystems are very interconnected. Land populations are easier to count and can give us information about numbers of marine species in the food chain, both predators and prey. The penguin diet composition can also tell us about marine species populations, without needing to count them. Understanding these relationships will help us identify other species that may be at risk and how to better protect them.
What other research did you conduct with these penguins while you were there?
The goal of the expedition to Snow Hill Island was to capture information about Emperor penguin population, movement, and diet.
Visual summary of the research conducted in this expedition
While visiting the island, the team collected guano (the scientific term for seabird poo) from the penguin colonies to better understand what it's made up of and what it looks like. This may sound like a strange thing to study, but is actually very useful! It's important to understand the penguin diet: penguins are fantastic divers and what they eat tells us about what marine life under the sea ices looks like, and how it's impacted by climate change. We've recently started to look at penguin poo from space using satellites and using the colour of the guano to track their diet, but we need to see how the colour relates to the composition and DNA of the guano.
We also put GPS trackers on 15 Emperor Penguins to monitor their patterns of movement in real time. This can give us information about their patterns of behaviour and chosen feeding sites, and how this may change with warming. We're already seeing results from the tags and they are rather impressive! This February in 2024, they swam immense distances on their individual feeding adventures from 5,000-10,000 km in length each time, before returning around two months later to their colony and their chicks. This is roughly the distance between New York and Tokyo in a straight line!
Penguin GPS tracking - and the paths they take on fishing trips away from the colony
Read more about this expedition to Antarctica here: Snow Hill Emperor Penguin Expedition
Amazing Emperor penguin facts
Athletic and aquatic
Emperor penguins are the largest species of penguin in the world, and are giants by penguin standards. They are the only penguin that breeds and lives exclusively on sea ice. They are also the best divers, and can stay underwater for up to 18 minutes and hold the record penguin dive depth of 535m.
Penguin proposals
Emperor penguins don't propose to each other with pebbles like land-based species of penguin do, but they do something even more dramatic. The males give loud and dramatic courtship calls, waiting for a female to approach. They then stand together motionlessly for a few minutes, necks upright and reaching towards the sky. If neither penguin backs down from the pose, the ritual is complete and they become official.
Incredible incubation
Emperor penguin eggs are incubated by males, while the females leave to feed. Over this time, they huddle together while keeping the egg in a skin pouch and balanced on their feet. They do not eat for around two months while incubating, as they can't leave the egg to hunt. If the female doesn't return in time for the egg hatching, the males are able to feed the chick for around a week using "crop milk" that they produce in their esophagus. Penguins, pigeons and flamingos are the only species that are able to do this.
Scientific serenades
Emperor penguins can produce two different sounds at the same time. The two frequencies interfere when sang together, create a beating sound pattern that is completely unique to that bird. This is the main way they tell each other apart and locate each other in the colony. When a chick is very young, both parents gently sing to it so that they can recognise their parents' voices.
Unconventional couples
Emperor penguins are very devoted and monogamous parents and work together as a team to bring up a chick every year. However, when they return to the colony to breed in the next year, they find different partners to mate with. The return rate to the same partner is around 15% within a colony.
Read more about the different species of penguin in Antarctica here: Penguins - British Antarctic Survey
Read more about Emperor penguin conservation on the WWF website:Emperor Penguins - WWF
Relative penguin heights
What else can we do to save the Emperor penguins?
Emperor penguins are on track to extinction due to human-caused climate change melting their habitat, sea ice. However, this prediction is based on the assumption that we won't try to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. So, there are things we can do to save the penguins (and many other ecosystems) as a society, and as individuals.
As a society, we need to eliminate our need for fossil fuels by moving to non-emitting energy sources, and in the future, helping reduce the greenhouse effect even more by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
There are also things you can do in your own life, like not eating red meat, travelling by public transport rather than planes or long car journeys, and making your voice heard by those in power.
These actions have a large impact on society as a whole when people make a collective effort. Now is the time to act to prevent the worst consequences of climate change. Participating in this campaign is a small thing you are doing to help - thank you!
Polar Observatory is supported by the British Antarctic Survey, WWF and the Antarctic Research Trust