With temperatures reaching below -50°C and winds reaching over 100km per hour, the frozen desert of Antarctica is one of the harshest environments on Earth. Despite these conditions, life finds a way, with thousands of penguins calling this icy world their home. But with the pressures of climate change continuing to mount, researchers are braving the Antarctic wilderness to understand the impacts on the lives of these iconic flightless birds.
Over 15,000km from her home in France, on the Pointe Géologie archipelago, fieldwork assistant, Natacha Planque, faces the frozen world each day as she steps out of the Dumont d’Urville (DDU) Station to study the lives of emperor and Adélie penguins.
Working with Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Institut Polaire Français, and supported by WWF, Natacha gives an insight into the life of a penguin researcher.
Counting
By land and air, Natacha is supporting the annual counts of emperor and Adélie penguins, monitoring more than 25 islands.
“From helicopters and on foot, we’ve counted more than 38,000 nesting Adélie couples and 34,000 chicks this year, and these numbers have been rising in Pointe Géologie since 1985,” says Natacha.
But sadly, this is not representative of the species as a whole, with Adélie penguin populations declining by around 65% in the past 25 years in the Antarctic Peninsula due to the impacts of climate change.
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Observing
Emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica have been under immense pressure from a loss of sea ice, with mass breeding failures recorded in recent years. This makes Natacha’s observations of the emperor penguin colony in Pointe Géologie vital to understanding the impacts on the population.
“From the first arrivals of the emperors in March, to the departures of the females in May, my job is to count their huge marching columns and identify the icy corridors they use to move between the islands,” Natacha explains.
“The data is stark, and emperors are in decline, but seeing these iconic birds marching through the wilderness fills me with wonder. I remember at the end of March, when the sea ice was newly formed, I watched as the emperors waited a few days before it was solid enough to cross. I love going down to the island to see these incredible animals against the dramatic landscape. Yes, hands get really cold holding binoculars and cameras! But you just have to shake them off and put them in bigger gloves!”
Collecting
To keep track of their reproductive success, Natacha and the team collect emperor penguin eggs that have failed to hatch, due to nesting birds dropping them for example, and then count them.
“This year, I carefully gathered and brought 100 unsuccessful eggs to the lab. Here we measured the length, width and mass of each egg,” explains Natacha. “This tells us how eggs morphology vary between years depending on the environmental conditions.”
Kidnapping
Once out of the egg, early life can be perilous for emperor penguins, and Natacha is investigating a rather curious crime. She’s gathering data on chick kidnapping!
“In August, the chicks leave the brood pouch. They run through the colony, with their parents running after them and trying not to lose them!” says Natacha. “But sadly, some emperor penguins can be seen wandering around the colony after returning from the sea, looking for a chick that simply isn’t there.”
“Driven by a maternal instinct, the chick-less adults set out to get one! And more than 20 adults can be seen trying to steal a single chick. Sometimes, they win. But sadly, they seldom manage to keep the chick alive.”
It is believed that fluctuations in this behaviour may be linked to a lack of food availability, and research is still ongoing.
Digging
Not all of Natacha’s duties are quite as exhilarating as counting penguins from the sky and monitoring kidnappings. One of her key winter missions is to keep detection antennas running.
Like putting a microchip in a domestic cat, every year, 300 emperor penguin chicks on Pointe Géologie are tagged and monitored with tracking devices called pit-tags. Antennas are set in the ice and snow, allowing passing penguins to be monitored year-round without being disturbed.
“Before I came here, I didn’t imagine I would have to dig the ice with an axe to put antennas in the ground!” says Natacha.
With all this data gathered by committed people like Natacha, WWF and partners can better understand the impacts of pressures such as climate change on Antarctic wildlife and advocate for stronger protections and increased conservation efforts.
Main image: Emperor penguin mass arrival in March 2024, Pointe Géologie archipelago, Antarctica/Natacha Planque / IPEV
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