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28 February 2018

King penguins may be on the move very soon

SUB-ANTARCTIC – King penguin colonies in Crozet, Kerguelen and Marion sub-Antarctic islands  – more than 70% of the global king penguin population – may be nothing more than a memory in a matter of decades, as global warming will force the birds to move south, or disappear. This is the conclusion of a study carried out by an international team of researchers and published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

King penguins. Photo (c) Celine LeBohec.
"The main issue is that there is only a handful of islands in the Southern Ocean and not all of them are suitable to sustain large breeding colonies" said Robin Cristofari, lead author of the study, from the Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC) (a mixed research unit of the CNRS and the University of Strasbourg) and the Centre Scientifique de Monaco (CSM).

King penguins are picky animals – in order to form a colony where they can mate, lay eggs and rear chicks over a year, they need tolerable temperatures all year round, no winter sea ice around the island, and smooth beach of sand or pebbles. But, above all, they need an abundant and reliable food source close by to feed their chicks.

25 February 2018

How to tell male king penguins from female ones - all the time

SUBANTARCTIC - It is difficult to distinguish males from females among king penguins, but a new Ibis study reveals that king penguins can be sexed with an accuracy of 100% based on the sex-specific syllable pattern of their vocalisations. In comparison, using beak length to sex king penguins is accurate 79% of the time.
Male-female king penguin couple
Image (c) Hannah Kriesell

09 February 2018

Annual yellow-eyed penguin breeding results remain low

NEW ZEALAND – The Department of Conservation (DOC) and Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust estimate there are 250 breeding pairs of yellow-eyed penguins (hoiho) along the Otago and Southland coastline as their annual breeding season comes to an end.

This estimate is similar to the past two seasons (250 pairs and 260 pairs) but considerably lower than historically, where there have been between 400–600 breeding pairs.