Penguin at risk of extinction due to climate change and overfishing: ‘2023 a disaster year’

They live on the front lines of the climate crisis and are becoming extinct at a rapid pace: the penguin. Humans are also responsible for that. Marcel Hennen wrote the book ‘Penguins and People’. Conceived as a hymn, but soon to be read as a funeral book.

“Because of the rapidly melting sea ice, emperor penguins don’t have a stable place to hatch their eggs,” says Hennen, who has been studying penguins for more than 35 years. The emperor penguin is a species known to many through the movie ‘Happy Feet’ and the Oscar-winning documentary ‘March of the Penguins’.

Year of the penguin disaster

2023 is a cataclysmic year for penguins, Hennen says: “On February 21, 2023, sea ice extent was at its lowest level not measured in the last 40 years. 10 years before that, it had doubled.”

According to the British Antarctic Survey, this year 10,000 penguin chicks starved or drowned before they could grow the feathers that help them swim. Four out of five colonies tested failed to reproduce themselves.

Bird flu at the South Pole

The emperor penguin is predicted to become extinct within 30 to 40 years. If not soon, because of another danger: bird flu. Last week the virus was identified in Antarctica and scientists are predicting mass deaths of animals on the continent. “Bird flu seems to have had less of an impact on penguins so far, in contrast to elephant seals, which are currently dying out there in large numbers,” says Hennen.

“Almost all eighteen species have been affected by changes in two ecosystems: land and sea,” he explains. And according to him, these changes are caused by humans: “Our CO2 emissions are melting the sea ice, which is why the penguins are dying. But there is a food shortage in South Africa because we humans are taking too much fish. The ocean is causing the African penguin to starve.”

A clumsy toddler in a tuxedo

Hanen has had a keen interest in birds since childhood. The animal reminds him of a clumsy toddler in a tuxedo. “I don’t see any other animal as fascinating, funny and inspiring as the penguin. But instead of protecting such a special animal, we humans have been killing it since we first met it 500 years ago. It’s very sad.”

His love is strengthened by the fact that penguins live in the most remote places on earth, far from where he grew up in Limburg. “Browsing through my big forest atlas, I couldn’t imagine as a boy that I would meet a penguin in real life.”

‘Olympic Games for Penguinologists’

Later, Hanen ‘met’ many penguins in their natural habitats in New Zealand, South Africa and Antarctica. He also visited the International Penguin Convention twice. “It’s a kind of Olympics for penguinologists. They spend months studying as penguin hermits in Antarctica or on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“But once every 3 years they break out of that isolation and come together to the conference. All the experts are penguin addicts, they wear penguin clothes and penguin shirts,” he says. A highlight of Hennen was the penguin cruise. “I still remember the moment we saw the Magellanic penguins. Like an excited school class, all the scientists ran after the penguins in the blizzard to take pictures.”

No hope for ‘happy feet’

Hennen calls his book a declaration of love with a tragic edge. “Through this historical book I wanted to create a memorial to the friendliest bird on Earth, which is endangered by us.”

Hannon doesn’t trust Emperor Penguin, known by his ‘happy feet’. “A colony can survive a few bad reproductive years, but not anymore. And things aren’t going to get any better. By the end of this century, 90 percent of colonies will be extinct.”

Love cannot be taken for granted

Other species have hope, Henen says. “The African penguin is now dying due to lack of food. But something can be done about it, albeit not wholeheartedly. In Namibia, unconditional love for penguins has not manifested itself. The Minister of Justice and the Minister of Fisheries were arrested in 2019 on suspicion of corruption in fishing quotas.

“But in South Africa, the environment minister has come to the penguin’s rescue,” says the expert. “From January 15, 2024, fish less than 10 years old may be caught around the six main penguin colonies in South Africa.”

Help from Artis Zoo?

If that step is not enough, help from the Netherlands is still possible. “We have the largest colonies of African penguins in the Artis,” says Hennen. “Artis African Penguin Studbook Keeper and Breeding Coordinator for Several European Zoos.”

“Last year, African penguin conservationists were in Artis to discuss the possibility of flying penguins from Amsterdam to Cape Town,” he says. A penguin lover sees this with optimism: “They will help hatch the eggs in the breeding factory.”