Penguin chick miraculously survives torn iceberg

In May, a huge iceberg broke off an Antarctic ice shelf, drifted away, and came to rest in front of “perhaps the world’s unluckiest” penguin.

Like a closed door, the massive wall of icebergs isolates the colony of Halley Bay from the sea.

This seemed to spell the end for hundreds of people Newly hatched fluffy chicks Their mother is out looking for food and may no longer be able to contact them.

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

Scientists now find that tenacious penguins have found a way Defeat a huge iceberg – Satellite images seen exclusively by BBC News this week show life in the colony.

But scientists have endured a long and anxious wait until now, 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 had survived, they couldn’t tell us.

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

It was still winter in the Antarctic, so satellites couldn’t penetrate the complete darkness to take photos of the birds.

The label “Perhaps the unluckiest penguin in the world” comes from Peter, who has been sharing the ups and downs of penguins for years.

These creatures teeter on the edge of life and death, and this is just the latest in a series of near-misses.

It was once a stable colony, breeding 14,000 to 25,000 pairs a year, the second largest in the world.

But in 2019, news came of catastrophic breeding failures. Peter and his colleagues found that the colony had not produced any chicks for three years.

Little penguins need to live on sea ice Until they are strong enough to survive in open water. But climate change is warming the oceans and air, causing sea ice to become more unstable and prone to sudden breakup during storms.

With no sea ice, the chicks drowned.

A few hundred stragglers moved to nearby McDonald Ice Field to keep the group going.

Until the A83 iceberg calved from the Brunt Ice Shelf in May, the iceberg covered 380 square kilometers (145 square miles), about the size of the Isle of Wight.

Peter feared total annihilation. He explains that this has happened to other penguin colonies – an iceberg blocked a group of penguins in the Ross Sea for several years, preventing them from reproducing.

A few days ago, the sun rose again in Antarctica. The Sentinel-1 satellite used by Peter orbited over Halley Bay, taking pictures of the ice sheet.

Peter opened the file. “I was scared to see that there was nothing there,” he said. But against all odds, he found what he was hoping for—a brown stain on the white ice cap. The penguin is still alive.

“It’s a huge relief,” he said.

But how they survived remains a mystery. The iceberg may be about 15 m (49 ft) high, meaning penguins cannot climb it.

“There’s a crevasse, so they might be able to sneak into it,” he said.

He explained that icebergs may extend more than 50m beneath the waves, but penguins can dive down to 500m.

“Even if there’s just a small crack, they can slip under it,” he said.

The team will now wait for higher-resolution images to show exactly how many penguins are there.

Scientists from the UK’s Halley Research Base will travel to verify the size and health of the colony.

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

The Macdonald Ice Sheet, where penguins now live, is dynamic and unpredictable, with seasonal Antarctic sea ice levels near record lows.

Peter said that as the A83 moved, it changed the topography of the ice, meaning the penguin breeding grounds were now “more exposed”.

Cracks appeared in the ice, getting closer and closer to the edge of the sea.

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

“They’re really incredible animals. It’s a bit bleak. Like many animals in Antarctica, they live on sea ice. But it’s changing, and if your habitat changes, it’s never good,” he said explain.