Climate Change and Endangered Species: Emperor Penguin

Chris Lachance

A00352917

Climate change and

Endangered Species:

Emperor Penguins

Global warming is a force that puts us all at danger. This danger and the damage it can do to the human race is often overlooked. We are just realizing that it is a threat to us. Something we don't take into account is the threat that it is to wildlife and their habitats, specifically the Emperor Penguin in Antarctica. Global warming poses a threat that will set these Emperor Penguins on a march to extinction. The risk of Emperor penguins interests and concerns me because they are my favorite animal. I car about penguins and their habitats. I would like to someday visit Antarctica and see them. It would hurt to know that a species I care about is going to be extinct.

The climate change affects Antarctica because of the rising temperatures. The rising temperatures increase the amount that the ice caps will melt. Emperor Penguins have made the Antarctica ice caps their habitat. If their habitat melts away, they will have no where to go that can support themselves. According to an article on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution website, they states that “The research indicates that if climate change continues to melt sea ice at the rates published in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the median population size of a large emperor penguin colony in Terre Adelie, Antarctica, likely will shrink from its present size of 3,000 to only 400 breeding pairs by the end of the century.” That is an incredible drop in the population that puts them at the brink of being extinct. Emperor penguins breed on the sea ice. When the ice melts, the penguins will have less and less space to use for breeding. This will eventually lead to the drop in population. The book Winged Sentinels: Birds and Climate Change provides examples and evidence from other penguin colonies that they are at risk. In 1970 at the Dion Islets penguins colony, there were over 150...