Ice melt threatens emperor penguins during annual moult: researchers

Paris, France: Emperor penguins shed all their feathers once a year, a precarious ritual that may have become deadly as climate change pushes them int...

Paris, France: Emperor penguins shed all their feathers once a year, a precarious ritual that may have become deadly as climate change pushes them into shrinking patches of Antarctic sea ice, researchers said Wednesday.

The flightless birds moult during summer, relying on stored fat to survive for several weeks until their waterproof coat grows back so they can swim and hunt in icy waters again.

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey, analysing seven years of satellite images, accidentally discovered several moulting colonies along the extremely remote coastline of an area known as Marie Byrd Land.

As sea ice melted, the penguins were forced onto smaller spaces in increasingly large and tightly packed groups, the UK polar research organisation said in a statement.

In 2025, only 25 small groups of penguins were visible in the satellite images, it said. Prior to 2022, more than 100 groups had been spotted in the same region.