Search Here

150,000 Adelie penguins have suffered an untimely death on Cape Denison in Antarctica in the last five years as a giant iceberg blocked their only source of food, say scientists.

According to a study published recently in the journal Antarctic Science, an iceberg named B09B collided with Mertz Glacier Tongue and got wedged into Commonwealth Bay, an area that rarely saw sea ice formation. As a result, many Adelie penguins sought refuge here in colonies. However, the iceberg B09B, area of 1,120 square miles, got stuck here and blocked access to the food source for the birds. Now the birds have to cover a distance of 37 miles looking for food. Over a period of time, the population has decreased to a few thousand, Hindustan Times reports

"We saw a lot of dead carcasses, particularly the young, which was terrible to see. But the really important thing is that the penguins are just not coming back to that area," Chris Fogwill, a co-author of the study, told The Associated Press on Monday.

The survey for the study was conducted by Fogwill and his team of researchers in 2013-14 at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Australia along with West Coast Penguin Trust in New Zealand.

Adelie penguins are readily seen in Antarctica and are known to be highly sociable as they can be seen in large group gatherings. They are also known as the tuxedoed penguins. Researchers say it is tricky to predict exactly how long with the penguins take to recolonize the Commonwealth Bay region. They also project that without their new members and inability to naturally breed, the whole colony will perish in 20 years, as reported by CBC News