Penguin chicks miraculously survive iceberg

In May, a massive iceberg broke off an Antarctic ice shelf and drifted away, coming to rest right in front of “perhaps the world’s most unlucky” penguin.

As if a door were closing, a massive wall of icebergs sealed off the Haley Bay colony from the sea.

It seemed like it meant hundreds of apocalypses. Newly hatched fluffy chick Those mothers who went out in search of food may no longer have been able to reach them.

Then, a few weeks ago, the iceberg moved and started moving again.

Miraculously, scientists discovered that persistent penguins found a way. Defeat the giant iceberg – Satellite images released exclusively by BBC News this week show life in the colony.

But scientists have endured a long and anxious wait to this point, and the chicks will face another potentially fatal challenge in the coming months.

When we asked the British Antarctic Survey in August whether the emperor penguins were alive, they couldn’t tell us.

“We won’t know until the sun comes up,” said scientist Peter Fretwell.

It was still winter in Antarctica, so satellites could not penetrate complete darkness to photograph the birds.

The label “maybe the world’s most unlucky penguin” comes from Peter, who has followed the penguin’s ups and downs for many years.

These creatures teeter on the edge between life and death, and this was just the latest in a series of close calls.

It was once a stable colony, with between 14,000 and 25,000 breeding pairs each year, making it the second largest in the world.

But in 2019, news broke of a fatal breeding failure. Peter and his colleagues discovered that the flock had not raised a single chick for three years.

Baby penguins must live on sea ice. Until you are strong enough to survive in the sea. But as climate change warms the oceans and air, sea ice becomes more unstable and prone to sudden collapse during storms.

The lack of sea ice caused the chicks to drown.

Hundreds of stragglers moved their homes to the nearby MacDonald Ice rumples and continued the group.

It was created by the A83 iceberg, which at 380 square kilometers (145 square miles) is roughly the size of the Isle of Wight, carved into the Brunt Ice Shelf last May.

Peter feared annihilation. This has also happened in other penguin colonies. An iceberg blocked the group for several years in the Ross Sea, preventing them from breeding successfully, he explains.

A few days ago, the sun rose again in Antarctica. Peter’s Sentinel-1 satellite orbits over Halley Bay and takes pictures of the ice sheets.

Peter opened the file. “I was horrified to see that there would be nothing there,” he says. But despite the odds, he found what he had hoped for. There were brown specks on the white ice sheet. The penguins are alive.

“It was a huge relief,” he says.

But how they survived remains a mystery. The iceberg is about 15 meters (49 feet) high, meaning penguins cannot climb it.

“There would have been a gap in the ice so we could have dived,” he says.

Icebergs probably extend more than 50 meters beneath the waves, but penguins can dive up to 500 meters, he explains.

“Even if there was a small crack, you might have jumped under it,” he says.

Now the team awaits high-resolution photos that will show exactly how many penguins there are.

Scientists from the British research station at Halley will visit to check the size and health of the colony.

But Antarctica remains a rapidly changing region, affected by global warming and natural phenomena that make life there difficult.

The MacDonald Ice rumples where penguins currently live are dynamic and unpredictable, and seasonal sea ice levels in Antarctica are near record lows.

As the A83 moved, the ice landscape changed, meaning the penguins’ breeding grounds were now “more exposed”, Peter said.

Cracks are forming in the ice and the edge with the sea is getting closer day by day.

If the ice breaks before the chicks can swim around December, Peter warns, they will die.

“They are truly amazing animals. It’s a bit grim. Like many animals in Antarctica, they live on sea ice. But things are changing. “It’s never good when habitat changes,” he says.