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The mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks as sea ice is melted by the climate crisis has led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to declare the species officially in danger of extinction.
Emperor penguins rely on “fast” ice – sea ice that is firmly attached to the coast – for nine months of the year. It is where their fluffy chicks are hatched and grow until they have their waterproof feathers. Adults moult every year and also need a safe haven while their swimming feathers regrow.
However, global heating has led to record lows in Antarctic sea ice since 2016. When sea ice breaks up early, entire colonies can fall into the ocean, leaving the chicks to drown. Even if some penguins escape the water, they are soaked and will freeze to death.
Four of the five known emperor penguin breeding sites in the Bellingshausen Sea collapsed in 2022, with the loss of thousands of chicks. Another colony in the Weddell Sea collapsed in 2016. Researchers called the catastrophes “grim” and “extraordinarily distressing”.
The IUCN assessment projects that the emperor penguin population will halve by the 2080s owing to sea ice loss. The current emperor penguin population is estimated at 595,000 adults, having already fallen by 10% between 2009 and 2018.
Emperors are the largest penguin species and jumped two categories, from “near threatened” to “endangered” in the new IUCN analysis.
The assessment also found the climate crisis had driven a halving of the Antarctic fur seal population since 2000, owing to a reduction in the krill that the animals rely on for food. The seal has jumped three categories from least concern to endangered in the latest red list of threatened species.
“The emperor penguin’s move to endangered is a stark warning: climate change is accelerating the extinction crisis before our eyes,” said Martin Harper, the chief executive of BirdLife International, which coordinated the IUCN assessment. “Governments must act now to urgently decarbonise our economies.”
The marine ecologist Dr Philip Trathan, who worked on the emperor penguin red list analysis, said: “Human-induced climate change poses the most significant threat. Early sea ice breakup is already affecting colonies around the Antarctic, and further changes in sea ice will continue to affect their breeding, feeding and moulting habitat. Emperor penguins are a sentinel species that tell us about our changing world and how well we are controlling greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change.”
Dr Peter Fretwell, a scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, was part of the team that reported the colony collapses in the Bellingshausen Sea in 2022. “It’s a grim story,” he told the Guardian then. “I was shocked. It’s very hard to think of these cute fluffy chicks dying in large numbers.”
Dr Barbara Wienecke, of the Australian Antarctic Division, said of the same colony collapses: “It’s horrendous and I find it extraordinarily distressing to think of this happening.”
Rod Downie, the interim director of science at WWF-UK, said: “With the shocking decline in Antarctic sea ice we are currently witnessing, these icons on ice may well be heading down the slippery slope towards extinction by the end of this century – unless we act now. The fate of these magnificent birds is in our hands.”
Cutting the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels to zero is the only way to halt global heating. WWF is also calling for emperor penguins to be listed as a “specially protected species” at the next Antarctic treaty meeting in May in Japan, which would help reduce other pressures on their habitat such as tourism and shipping.
The Antarctic fur seal population has dropped by more than half since 1999 to 944,000 mature seals in 2025, according to IUCN. The decline is the result of rising ocean temperatures pushing krill to greater depths in search of colder water, reducing the availability of food for seals. Krill shortages at South Georgia island have slashed the survival of pups in their first year.
The southern elephant seal is also now at risk of extinction, the IUCN said, having been hit by bird flu outbreaks since 2020. The disease has affected four of the five major subpopulations, killing more than 90% of newborn pups in some colonies. The species is now in the IUCN’s vulnerable category.
