by Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Nov 30 (IPS) — Ice-loving penguins have never been more popular, but few people realise they are threatened with extinction from climate change and industrial fishing.

The loveable stars of the Hollywood movie “Happy Feet” and the stoic and courageous creatures featured in the popular documentary “March of the Penguins” are in trouble.

Of the world’s 19 penguin species, 12 are now so threatened they need special protection, according to the Centre for Biological Diversity (CBD), a California environmental group focused on species extinction.

Popularity doesn’t guarantee survival. But it might increase protection and prompt action on climate change, says Brendan Cummings, director of the CBD’s Oceans Programme.

Cummings’ organisation filed a formal petition this week requesting that 12 species of penguins worldwide, including the well-known Emperor Penguin, be added to the list of threatened and endangered species under the United States Endangered Species Act.

Although there are more than two million pairs of Macroni Penguins left, they are listed in the petition because of a 50 percent population decline in the past 15 years. There are roughly 150,000 to 175,000 pairs of the world’s largest penguin, the Emperor, but that number is far fewer than a few decades ago.

The Emperor Penguin colony at Pointe Geologie, featured in the film “March of the Penguins”, has declined by 70 percent, Cummings told IPS. He blames the decline on fewer krill, a small shrimp-like creature that is its main source of food, the early break-up of ice shelves where chicks are born and the general changes to its ice and ocean habitat due to a warmer Antarctic.

Penguins are only found in the Southern Hemisphere. The US Endangered Species Act could prevent US vessels from fishing for krill and might force the federal government to take stronger action on its emissions of greenhouse gases, he said.

Krill are the keystone species of the Antarctic marine ecosystem. An essential food source not just for penguins but also for whales and seals, krill have declined by as much as 80 percent since the 1970s in some parts of the Southern Ocean, he said.

Industrial fishing boats have recently turned their attention to the great Southern Ocean to catch krill for the fast-growing trade to supply krill as fish meal for farmed salmon, says Clif Curtis, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Antarctic Krill Conservation Project.

“Krill are not overfished at present, but there are worrying trends,” Curtis told IPS

There are also new fishing technologies being developed that will literally allow krill to be vacuumed up even when they are deep in the water column. One such Norwegian ship has been proposed that could catch 120,000 tonnes of krill in a season, he said.

This and other ships would likely supply the booming health food and pharmaceutical markets. Krill are rich in omega-3 three fatty acids, which are believed to prevent heart disease and inflammatory conditions such as arthritis.

Scientists blame krill fishery, global warming.

At the same time, climate change is reducing the sea ice cover which is home to phytoplankton that krill feeds on, he said.

The krill fishery is “laxly regulated”, says Curtis. His organisation has appealed to the 24-nation Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources to adopt monitoring, control and surveillance measures that other fisheries operating in the Southern Ocean already use.

The George W. Bush administration finalised a proposal this month that would clear the way for an expanded US fishing fleet for krill in the otherwise protected waters off Antarctica.

“It is absurd and illegal that the administration would authorise krill harvesting off Antarctica without even considering the well-documented impacts of global warming on krill stocks and the penguins,” said Cummings.

“First we fished out the whales and then the toothfish (Chilean Sea Bass) and now we’ve fished our way to the bottom of the food chain catching krill.”

In a statement, John Collee, co-writer of the movie “Happy Feet”, said, “We have this bizarre delusion that we can utterly destroy our marine ecosystems and somehow emerge unscathed.”

“As regards global warming, the entire West Antarctic ice sheet is balanced on the tips of mountains and fragmenting at the edges,” Collee said.

The United States, with four percent of the world’s population, currently produces about one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gases. The US Government Accounting Office projects that these greenhouse gas emissions will grow by 43.5 percent through the year 2025.

Environmental groups and many US states brought a landmark lawsuit to the US Supreme Court this week to challenge the US Environmental Protection Agency’s refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

“We’re all in denial” about tremendous impacts humans are having on the environment, Collee said. That reality is “so dark that most people don’t want to contemplate it”.

This story originally appeared on the Inter Press Service news wire.

Stephen Leahy is a freelance journalist who writes about science and the environment for Maclean’s, Wired News, New Scientist, The London Sunday Times, Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), BBC Wildlife, and The Toronto Star.