King penguins may soon be wiped out
King penguins may soon be wiped out
One of the emblems of the Antarctic, the king penguin, could be driven to extinction by climate change, a French study warns. In a long-term investigation on the penguins' main breeding grounds, investigators found that a tiny warming of the Southern Ocean by the El Nino effect caused a massive fall in the birds' ability to survive. If predictions by UN scientists of ever-higher temperatures in coming decades prove true, the species faces a major risk of being wiped out, they say.
Publication Date:
12/02/2008