Melting of ice may doom Antarctica's emperor penguins, scientists warn
Antarctica's emperor penguins will lose their main food source as southern sea ice vanishes due to global warming, a new study warns
The population of Antarctica's famous emperor penguins could fall by a third by the end of the century because of disappearing sea ice, putting them at risk of extinction, say researchers.
Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US state of Massachusetts say their findings justify protecting emperor penguins under the US Endangered Species Act - as it already does for polar bears.
They also call for marine reserves to be created to buffer the fish stocks that penguins need to survive.
"The population is declining. Unless something changes to stop that, the population will go into extinction," said Professor Hal Caswell, one of the study's authors.
Penguins are mainly at risk from climate change The melting of sea ice is reducing the supply of krill, the shrimp-like crustaceans that populate the Southern Ocean and are the penguins' main food source. Young krill feed off algae living in the sea ice. When the ice goes, so do the krill.
Changes in the ice around Antarctica might - in the short term - boost some of the emperor penguin populations, especially along the Ross Sea, the researchers said. Sea ice off the western coast of Antarctica has been on the increase, because of wind conditions and the break-up of glaciers.