Researchers studying penguins in Antarctica said their colonies have declined drastically over the past 50 years, in some cases - by 77%.
Scientists from the Greenpeace expedition found that each colony examined on Elephant Island, an important penguin habitat, decreased and their total number has fallen by almost 60% since the last survey in 1971, with the total number of breeding pairs being less than 53 thousand (previously recorded 122.5 thousand).
"Such significant declines suggest that the Southern Ocean's ecosystem is fundamentally changed from 50 years ago, and that the impacts of this are rippling up the food web to species like chinstrap penguins," said Heather J Lynch, associate professor of ecology and evolution at New York's Stony Brook University, and one of the expedition's leads.
"While several factors may have a role to play, all the evidence we have points to climate change as being responsible for the changes we are seeing."
According to the scientist, the decline in the number of the amazing birds indicates that the general condition of the ecosystem in which they live is deteriorating.
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