Where in the world were all the penguins, Henri Weimerskirch wondered. It was in early 2017. Colleagues had sent the seabird ecologist aerial photographs of Île aux Cochons, a barren volcanic island between Madagascar and Antarctica that people rarely visit. The images revealed vast expanses of bare rock just a few decades ago filled with 500,000 pairs of nesting king penguins and their chicks. It turns out that the largest king penguin community in the world and the second largest of any of the 18 penguin species, the colony has shrunk by 90%. About 900,000 of the noble, meter-high, black, white, and orange birds disappeared without a trace. "It was really incredible, totally unexpected," recalls Weimerskirch, who works at the French national research agency CNRS.
Where in the world were all the penguins, Henri Weimerskirch wondered. It was in early 2017. Colleagues had sent the seabird ecologist aerial photographs of Île aux Cochons, a barren volcanic island between Madagascar and Antarctica that people rarely visit. The images revealed vast expanses of bare rock just a few decades ago filled with 500,000 pairs of nesting king penguins and their chicks. It turns out that the largest king penguin community in the world and the second largest of any of the 18 penguin species, the colony has shrunk by 90%. About 900,000 of the noble, meter-high, black, white, and orange birds disappeared without a trace. "It was really incredible, totally unexpected," recalls Weimerskirch, who works at the French national research agency CNRS.
ユニークアイテム
· 19
点合計アイテム
· 0
点作成日
· Sep 2021
クリエイター収益
· 10%
チェーン
Polygon