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Federal wildlife officials on Tuesday announced a proposal to protect them under the Endangered Species Act, saying climate change threatens the extinction of emperor penguins in much of their range.
Penguins live most of the year in Antarctic sea ice, which is destroyed or broken down by heat-trapping gases released by humans’ use of fossil fuels. Penguins need ice to breed, raise their young, and escape predators.
“Decisions made by policymakers today and over the next few decades will determine the emperor penguin’s fate,” Martha Williams, deputy director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement.
If the birds are listed as endangered, they will join several dozen species that the federal government considers threatened by climate change, including polar bears, two species of seals, and 20 species of coral.
Although the species is not found in the United States, a listing under the Endangered Species Act means that federal agencies must minimize damage to their habitat from U.S. activities, such as fishing.
The proposal was informed by scientific research. published independently Tuesday in the journal Global Change Biology. This study found that, given the world’s current energy trends and policies, more than 80 percent of emperor penguin colonies will disappear by 2100 if sea ice continues to disappear at the rate predicted by climate models.
But scientists emphasize that this need not be the case. If the world takes swift and drastic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris climate agreement, there will be enough sea ice left to support the reduced but still viable emperor penguin population.
“We need to act now before it’s too late,” said Stephanie Jenouvrier, the study’s lead author and a seabird ecologist with the Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography.
“And not just for penguins,” said Dr. jenouvrier “For us and our children”
The tallest of all penguins, the emperors stand almost four meters. After laying a single egg, the females hunt and the males feed the egg by keeping it on their feet and wrapping it in a hairy pouch. After hatching, the parents take turns taking care of their offspring. If the sea ice disappears before the young penguins can replace their fluffy baby feathers with sleek adult feathers, they cannot swim in the cold waters and die.
In 2016, Antarctica’s second largest colony lost more than 10,000 chicks in an area considered safe. Sea ice is actually frozen ocean. Penguins generally cannot climb ice shelves to find land-based habitat, and the harsh conditions there can deplete the penguins’ energy reserves.
The International Red List of Threatened Species for the Conservation of Nature currently classifies emperor penguins as “threatened” with a dwindling population.
Environmentalists say they hope listing the penguins will increase pressure on the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider the impact of fossil fuels on threatened species when it offers input on whether to grant federal permits.
“The hope is that with these added protections, approvals of U.S. fossil fuel projects will need to weigh the damage to penguins and Antarctic habitats and ultimately reduce heat trap pollution worldwide,” said Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the Center for Biological. Variation. The environmental group petitioned the United States to consider listing the penguin and sued when it did not act within the required time frame. Two employees of the group, Dr. He was among the 12 authors in Jenouvrier’s study.
The Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal Tuesday initiates a 60-day period of public comment.
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