Why Penguins Could Be The Unsung Heroes Of the Climate Crisis

Penguins are on the front lines of the climate war.

Transcript

00:00Penguins are on the front line of the climate war, as they often hang out in the coldest

00:08places on Earth.

00:10Places like Antarctica, where many species of penguins call these giant ice sheets home.

00:14Homes that will literally melt away as the planet continues to get warmer.

00:18Which is why experts from Stony Brook University are now counting penguins, hoping to track

00:23their populations because of what those numbers can tell us about our climate at large.

00:27This is polar ecology researcher Michael Weathington to explain.

00:31We can use penguins as a sort of bio-indicator to see how the rest of the ecosystem is operating.

00:38Penguins conveniently come to the same nesting sites over and over and over, year after year.

00:44And so we have this reliable signature of, you know, what are, how many individuals are

00:49there from one year to the next, and how does this play out sort of over decades or even

00:55longer timescales.

00:56And in certain areas they have found differing results.

00:58In western parts of Antarctica, specifically the Weddell Sea, Adelie penguin populations

01:03have been thriving, as that area is warming at a slower rate.

01:06But in other areas the species has not been so lucky, as ice masses have continued to

01:10decline at an alarming rate.

01:12However, the good news is that their numbers overall have remained stable.

01:15Something they say means now is the time to begin putting protections in place for the

01:19tuxedo-clad climate vanguard.