Overview
Emperor penguins' lives — like most of nature's creatures — center around eating, breeding and surviving. Unlike other species, emperor penguins manage in the harshest climate on Earth.
Reproduction
Emperor penguins travel about 55 miles inland to breed. The courtship begins in March or April when temperatures can reach as low as -40° F. The Emperor penguin has a thick coat of feathers that insulate its entire body, excluding only the legs and the undersides of the wings. The feathers provide a waterproof layer around the penguin's body.
In May or June, the female penguin lays one egg, which she transfers to the care of her mate. As the female goes off to feed, the male incubates the egg in a special layer of feathered skin. The incubation period lasts about 65 days, during which time the male does not eat at all. With cold winds reaching 120 mph, the males huddle together, taking turns in the middle to stay warm.
The female returns as the incubation period draws to a close then finds her mate through a distinct call. She then spits up her food to the hatched chick and keeps the penguin warm for an additional two months in her own brood pouch as the male goes off to find his own food.
After another few weeks, the male returns and both parents tend to the chick by keeping it off the ice and feeding it food from their stomachs. About two months after the egg hatches, as the weather becomes milder, the chicks huddle in a group for warmth and protection, still feeding on food regurgitated from their parents' stomachs.
Eventually, both child and parents will return to the sea and spend the rest of the summer feeding there. These penguins can dive 500-800 feet and can hold their breath between 15 and 20 minutes. Their average swimming speed is 4 to 6 miles per hour, but they can accelerate to 12 miles per hour during short bursts. On land they alternate between walking with a wobbling gait and sliding over the ice on their bellies, propelled by their feet and their flipper-like wings.
At the end of the summer the whole inland trip will repeat itself, and all penguins at approximately 4 years or older will breed, while the younger ones stay at sea until they are old enough.
Threats
Two fishing practices contribute massively to the decline of global fish populations. The first, bycatch, relates to the wasteful, unintentional catch by industrial fishing vessels. By using indiscriminate fishing practices, like large trawl nets, fishermen scoop up massive amounts of marine creatures — including sea birds, marine mammals and endangered sea turtles — and then discard the bodies back into the ocean. This type of dirty fishing discards more than 16 billion pounds of fish every year
Although Antarctica may seem a world away, our actions have a direct impact on the amount of global fish populations. If we hope to increase the amount of fish in the ocean — in Antarctica and elsewhere — we need to start by changing how we manage our our own fisheries.
Under existing laws, the U.S. federal government is required to reduce dirty fishing. But the National Marine Fisheries Service — the federal agency responsible for the management of U.S. fisheries — have not taken big enough steps forward in reducing the needless catch of marine life.
The good news is over the past several decades, fishery managers, scientists and the fishing industry have identified strategies to avoid and reduce dirty fishing. These strategies include gear improvements, changes to fishing practices, and time and area closures. However, the fisheries service has been slow in implementing real changes to reduce bycatch. Oceana is calling on the federal government to utilize the three C's to combat dirty fishing: count, cap and control.
The second fishing practice contributing to shrinking fish populations is bottom trawling. Bottom trawling is to oceans what clearcutting is to forests. Heavy nets wipe out the ocean floor, obliterating everything in their path including deep-sea corals and sponges. The seafloor serves as the ocean's foundation and this destruction impacts a variety of marine wildlife.
Oceana is working to reduce the impacts of bottom trawlers by setting the boundaries where bottom trawlers and dredgers are able to fish without harming sensitive bottom habitat. Other threats include:
* Food shortage: Commercial fishing for krill and fish on the Antarctic seas is putting increasing pressure on food chains and food availability for penguin populations. A 2006 report in the journal Science tells us that 29 percent of our fisheries have already collapsed. In addition, scientists' projection of current trends shows all of the world's current fisheries collapsing by 2048.
* Tourism: Antarctica is becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination. Thousands of people visit colonies during the breeding season. The presence of this mass of people can cause stress on the penguins and affect their ability to reproduce. There's also the risk of humans introducing pathogens into the pristine environment, such as bird flu.
* Pollution: Oil pollution kills tens of thousands of penguins every year. Oil spills can cover the penguins' feathers, which they ingest attempting to clean themselves.
* Global warming: Penguins depend on sea ice to hunt, feed and breed. As temperatures rise, the polar regions are the first to feel the effects as sea ice forms later and breaks up earlier. Global warming is believed to be responsible for a 50 percent drop in emperor penguin populations over the last 50 years.