Le Monde has learned about the threat to the survival of the penguin population due to melting ice

Climate changes accelerating the melting of the ice threaten the survival of the Emperor penguin population in Antarctica. This was reported on February 25 by the newspaper Le Monde, citing a study by the British Antarctic Survey.

British researchers analyzed satellite images taken over seven years of observations and revealed a sharp decline in the number of emperor penguin colonies. In 2025, only 25 small groups were visible on satellite images, while in 2022 more than 100 were seen in the same region, the publication says.

"Although we don't know what happened to these penguins. <...> It is possible that many of them died after entering the Southern Ocean before they had time to restore their waterproof plumage," explained mapping expert Peter Fretwell.

It is noted that in the period from 2022 to 2024, the Antarctic ice area decreased to a historically low level. However, in recent years, the coastal ice has been melting before the penguins had time to finish molting during the Arctic summer.

Forced to survive in increasingly limited spaces, the shrinking surface of coastal ice forces penguins to dive into the ocean ahead of time, where they die from hypothermia and cannot hide from predators, writes Le Monde.

"If this is the case, then the situation for emperor penguins is even more critical than we thought," warns Fretwell.

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Earlier in the day, The Guardian newspaper, citing a study by Nature Ecology & Evolution, reported that a systematic increase in temperature in the world's oceans is leading to a reduction in marine populations. According to Shahar Chaikin, an employee of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Spain, the change in temperatures "represents a stunning and extremely alarming trend towards a decrease in marine life."

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.