four new colonies of emperor penguins have been spotted by satellite on Antarctica

Good news for this species of seabird whose survival is threatened by climate change.

The survival of penguins depends on the Antarctic pack ice, formed by sea ice. These seabirds breed and raise their young on these coastal platforms formed by frozen seawater, but which can melt early due to global warming. The emperor penguin is classified as an endangered species, which is why researchers monitor the forced movements of these seabirds using satellite photos.

Researchers from the British Antartic Survey were therefore surprised to discover four new colonies in the images over the past months. This is several hundred additional emperor penguins to add to the number of approximately 250,000 breeding pairs that live in Antarctica. In fact, scientists do not spot penguins directly from space, they are too small, but dark marks on the white ice, traces of excrement which indicate the location of groups of birds.

The four new emperor penguin colonies discovered bring the total number of colonies in Antarctica to 66. Researchers see this as evidence that the birds are able to adapt and move to new sites as the sea ice changes, although unfortunately the forecast is bleak for the future of emperor penguins, which could have completely disappeared by 2100.

The advantage of monitoring colonies by satellite is to be able to plan appropriate conservation measures within the limits of what global warming will allow. With increasingly high image resolutions, monitoring wild animals from satellite images is a growing practice. These photos, taken 600 km from the earth, have already made it possible to count populations of walruses in the Arctic, whales in different oceans, or African elephants. There are also operations for monitoring the movements of animals equipped with beacons (the famous Argos beacons which date from the end of the 1970s) and which make it possible to follow, for example, the movement of birds, sea turtles, or reindeer in Russia.