An emperor penguin with chick. To date, little has been known about exactly where the species breeds and how big the colonies are.
Credit: BAS
A satellite image shows a faint but distinctive stain which gives away the location of an emperor penguin colony.
Credit: BAS
Fretwell explained that young chicks spend the first part of their life on the ice, developing a waterproof coat before venturing into the spring waters to feed. If the ice melts too soon – possibly due to global warming – then the fledglings perish.
"Now we have found the colony locations we can start to assess which colonies will be vulnerable to environmental change" he told Cosmos Online. The next step is to count the penguins much more precisely, which "would have been impossible without first knowing the colony locations."
Stephanie Jenouvrier, a biologist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, USA, thinks this work is crucial. "Scientist should join in their efforts to provide an accurate assessment of the total emperor penguin population," she said. "[This study's] original approach is the beginning of such an effort."
