Emperor Penguin Numbers Higher than Thought in Antarctica based on New Satellite Research

According to a new report from the National Science Foundation, a new study which made use of satellite mapping technology has show scientist that the number of emperor penguins living in Antarctica is actually much higher than previous estimates. The data roughly doubles the number of penguins previously believed to inhabit the south polar continent.

The findings, reported by the NSF which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program, are based on work recently published in the journal PLoS ONE. According to the article, an international team of scientists, were able to estimate the number of penguins at each colony near the Antarctic coastline through the use of very high resolution satellite images and a technique known as pan-sharpening to further increase the resolution.

The international team is a collaboration between the University of Minnesota/NSF, the British Antarctic Survey, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Australian Antarctic Division

“The methods we used are an enormous step forward in Antarctic ecology because we can conduct research safely and efficiently with little environmental impact, and determine estimates of an entire penguin population, said co-author Michelle LaRue from the University of Minnesota and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

“The implications of this study are far-reaching: we now have a cost-effective way to apply our methods to other poorly-understood species in the Antarctic, to strengthen on-going field research, and to provide accurate information for international conservation efforts.”

The results provide an important benchmark for monitoring the impact of environmental change on the population of this iconic bird, which breeds in remote areas that are very difficult to study because they often are inaccessible with temperatures as low as -58 degrees Fahrenheit.

According to lead author and geographer Peter Fretwell at British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the researchers were able to determine the number of penguins across 44 colonies, including 7 newly discovered colonies, to be at 595,000. Previous estimates of the Antarctic penguins were from 270,000-350,000 birds.