Emperor penguins added to endangered species 'Red List' as 10% die off in a decade

The International Union for Conservation of Nature updated its Red List on Thursday, detailing the latest conservation statuses and extinction risks of some well-known and overlooked species.

One of the biggest bombshells of this update is that the IUCN declared emperor penguins as an endangered species. The group also moved Antarctic fur seals into the endangered category and southern elephant seals into the vulnerable category.

Researchers explain that this trend of increasing extinction risk among Antarctic species is driven by shifts in sea ice levels and food availability linked to global warming.

Emperor penguins depend on ice sheets fastened to coastlines, the ocean floor, or other icebergs to raise their chicks and protect themselves during the molting season when they lose their waterproofing and insulation. As this sea ice fragments and melts due to increasing average temperatures, the survival rate of emperor penguin colonies plummets.

Using remote sensing, researchers found that the overall population of emperor penguins declined by nearly 10% between 2009 and 2018.

On top of this habitat loss, populations of emperor penguins' prey, such as krill and fish, are also declining.

Researchers used population modeling technology to consider a wide range of future climate scenarios. The results show that our current rate of heat-trapping gases will cause emperor penguin populations to drastically decline during this century.

"The declines of the emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal on the IUCN Red List are a wake-up call on the realities of climate change," warned IUCN director general Dr. Grethel Aguilar.

Xiao Cheng, director of the Polar Research Center at China's Sun Yat-sen University, was not involved in the IUCN assessment but agrees that "much evidence suggests that emperor penguins are experiencing increasing pressure," according to the New York Times. Cheng did, however, claim that it's premature to assume the fate of the species is sealed.

Humans can mitigate the melting of ice sheets by lessening our dependence on dirty energy sources, such as oil and gas, which produce polluting gases that warm the planet. That can mean switching to cheaper and cleaner solutions, such as solar power and electric vehicles. 

The scientific exploration of climate issues, such as melting ice sheets, is also critical to better understand what is happening to the planet.

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