Damoy Point, Wiencke Island and Palmer Station, Anvers Island
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. 3” of wet snow on the decks at first light. Rain as we land at Damoy Point, west coast of Wiencke Island. Rain? Yes, rain in Antarctica. Damoy is a set of granite terraces, home to over 2,000 Gentoo penguins. This species which has been increasing steadily in recent years with less sea-ice and the more open water which suits its foraging. But now the milder, wetter weather of recent years is impacting even this, the most successful penguin in the Peninsula. Once ashore we see stoic parents with tiny two-week-old chicks. But this is not right: they should have reached this stage by Christmas. They are all 6-7 weeks behind schedule: October and November came with such heavy snow drifts that they could not lay eggs until December. Now the young chicks have soft downy fleeces to keep them warm. Great in dry cold weather - but no use against wet, clinging snow. Many are shivering, most are sodden. Worse, there are several groups of chicks alone, hunched, bedraggled waifs with no vigilant parents to protect them from the skuas patrolling overhead. One gentoo rests a protective flipper over its sad, slumped chick, a chick too weak to raise its head, too numb to find a little warmth under its parent. And ominously, sprawled in the thick slurry below the colony, several small dead chicks. Global warming sounds vaguely comforting as a phrase; the reality is quite otherwise.
The spectre of a warming Antarctica haunts our afternoon destination: Palmer Station, the tiny American research base on the SW coast of Anvers Island. Driving wind, choppy seas and rain: a rough landing on Torgersen Island where scientists have monitored Adélie penguin breeding success for the last 30 years. In 1975 there were 15,000 prs. By 2009 only 9,000, a 40% decline in the last 3 decades. As we walk round the island we can see the polished rocks, abandoned sidewalks and freeways where once hundreds of penguins scrambled up to thriving colonies. Now the grass is growing up through their once bustling suburbs. Why? Because each year here there is less sea-ice as the ocean warms. And Adélies must find their food, the first-year krill, under spring sea-ice. Fewer chicks means less recruitment until there are no longer any birds to occupy their sites. Ghost towns and empty cities. A warmer ocean means less ice, less krill and that can only mean fewer penguins in the long run. Why is the ocean warmer? Because our modern lifestyle pumps ever more greenhouse gases into a finite atmosphere. Because we live ever more comfortably, penguin chicks are dying in Antarctica. If you doubt this, ask any scientist at Palmer Station. Are you still sitting comfortably? I hope not…for we all need to think about what we are doing to our planet in the name of reckless privilege and runaway progress.
