Conservation & Threats

Why do emperor penguins need sea ice?

Emperors are the only penguin that breeds on sea ice rather than land, and they need a specific kind: fast ice, which is frozen fast to the coastline, the seabed, or grounded icebergs rather than drifting. That platform has to survive the entire breeding cycle — laying in winter, two months of male incubation, chick rearing, and then the moult, when the birds are not waterproof and cannot enter the water at all. If the fast ice breaks up early, chicks that have not yet grown waterproof plumage end up in the ocean and drown. This is why sea-ice loss translates so directly into population decline for this species and not for penguins that nest on rock or in burrows.