Climatic crisis threatens emperor penguins of Antarctica

The emperor penguins of Antarctica are set to receive new protections under the Endangered Species Act, or ESA. This is because the climate crisis is a threat to these flightless seabirds. Global warming results in melting of sea ice and the penguins depend on the sea ice for their survival. As a result, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has categorized the species as threatened. The federal agency lists “imperiled species as endangered or threatened regardless of their country of origin.” The latest announcement came more than a year after an initial proposal by the service to protect emperor penguins under the ESA. Emperor penguins depend on sea ice to form their breeding colonies, avoid predators in the ocean and forage for food. However, the temperature of the Earth is rising because of increase in emission of greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide. The sea ice is at risk of disappearing. When this happens, entire penguin colonies can decline or disappear. The presence of emperor penguins is important to maintain the ecological balance because they forage for krill, fish and squid in the sea and serve as prey for leopard seals and killer whales. Antarctica’s emperor penguins at risk of extinction due to the climate crisis. As an expert says - climate change is having a profound impact on species around the world and addressing it is a priority for the (Biden) Administration. The listing of the emperor penguin serves as an alarm bell but also a call to action.

Emperor penguins are the tallest and heaviest of the 18 penguin species. They can weigh up to 40 kilograms and stand 1.1 meters tall. A female emperor lays one egg per breeding season, then passes it over to her male partner to incubate while she forages for food for about a two-month period. Listing the species as threatened now could help save them from becoming endangered or extinct in the future. The polar bear was the first species listed as threatened due to climate change under the Endangered Species Act in 2008. Since then, many of the world’s polar bear populations have stabilized, but they remain vulnerable as the climate crisis continues.

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Alaska cancels its snow crab harvest this year because of their disappearance from the Bering Sea in recent years

The Alaska Board of Fisheries and North Pacific Fishery Management Council have taken this decision. The reason is the drop in the population of snow crab in the Bering Sea. It went below the regulatory threshold to open up the fishery. It seems their numbers dropped from around 8 billion in 2018 to 1 billion in 2021. This is according to Benjamin Daly. He is a researcher with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. He revealed to a section of the media - “Snow crab is by far the most abundant of all the Bering Sea crab species that is caught commercially. So the shock and awe of many billions missing from the population is worth noting – and that includes all the females and babies.” Agencies have taken a similar decision for the Bristol Bay red king crab harvest. That also stands cancelled for the second year in a row. Officials cited overfishing as their rationale for canceling the seasons. It seems more crab were being caught than could be naturally replaced. Billions of snow crabs have disappeared from the waters around Alaska. Scientists say overfishing is not the cause. As an expert revealed, surveys conducted in 2021 and 2022 indicated that population of mature male snow crabs declined about 40 percent. As a result, there are an estimated 45 million pounds left in the entire Bering Sea.

The director for NOAA Fisheries in Kodiak lab differs. In his opinion, calling the Bering Sea crab population “overfished” does not make any mention about the cause of its collapse. He is Michael Litzow and he believes overfishing could not be responsible for the collapse. He says human-caused climate change is a significant factor in the alarming disappearance of crabs. He explains that these are cold-water species and found overwhelmingly in areas where water temperatures are below 2 degrees Celsius. The sea ice is disappearing due to the warm climate and the ocean around Alaska is becoming inhospitable for such species. Temperatures around the Arctic have warmed much faster than the rest of the planet. Climate change is responsible for triggering a rapid loss in sea ice in the Arctic region, particularly in Alaska’s Bering Sea.

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Air temperature in Arctic hottest in 115-years: walrus habitats threatened

It is an undisputed fact that the air in the Arctic is heating up, with the temperatures being the hottest in 115 years. As a result, the melting ice is destroying walrus habitat and forcing some fish northward as indicated in a global scientific report. Air temperature anomalies over land were 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 Celsius) above average. It was the highest since records began to be kept in 1900 as per the 2015 Arctic Report Card which is an annual peer-reviewed study issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
This has been reported in ibnlive.com dated 16 December 2015.

The annual sea ice maximum occurred on February 25, about two weeks earlier than average, and was "the lowest extent recorded since records began in 1979."
The NOAA chief scientist has cautioned that warming is happening more than twice as fast in the Arctic than anywhere else in the world. This is attributed to climate change, and its impacts are creating major challenges for Arctic communities. He added that what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.
NOAA chief scientist Rick Spinrad made these observations at the annual American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco.
The average annual air temperature was measured over land between October 2014 and September 2015 and it showed a 5.4 degree Fahrenheit (three degrees Celsius) increase since the beginning of the 20th century. Moreover, the minimum sea ice extent, measured on September 11, 2015, was the fourth lowest in the satellite record since 1979 and the snow cover across the Arctic has also been declining, and is down 18 per cent per decade since 1979. This year, Greenland experienced its first significant melting event since 2012, and lost more than half of its surface area.

(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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