5 February 2022 | New Scientist | 31Gone south
THIS is a newly discovered colony
of gentoo penguins on Andersson
Island off the Antarctic Peninsula,
photographed by Tomás Munita.
The animals and their 75 nests
were found by researchers from
Stony Brook University in New
York during a Greenpeace
expedition to the frigid region.
The team is surveying, and
filming, penguins on archipelagos
previously unexplored by foot,
to uncover the extent of the effect
of climate change on populations
of penguins. The birds are
considered to be “sentinel
species”, in this case alerting us
to the impact of a warming world.
Finding gentoos so far south
isn’t normal. These penguins
usually prefer warmer regions
such as the sub-Antarctic and
the Falkland Islands, where a
large population of them lives.
Climate change, however,
is opening up new territories.
As temperatures rise and more
ice melts, the eastern side of
the Antarctic Peninsula – once
considered too icy and harsh for
gentoos to survive and thrive – has
become more habitable for them.
This changing distribution
of penguins is just one aspect of
transformations across the entire
Antarctic ecosystem, which is
undergoing some of the most
rapid warming in the world. ❚Gege LiPhotographer Tomás Munita/
GreenpeaceNew Scientist Video
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